"They'll be ready to start in five minutes, Doctor. What next?"
"Turn out every man and every piece of transportation you have to-morrow morning. I want the men armed. They will have to search a stretch of swamp south of here, inch by inch, until they find what I'm looking for."
"They'll be ready, Doctor. Would it be indiscreet for me to ask what it's all about?"
"Not at all, Colonel. I was about to explain to General Merton when trouble started. I am searching for the cause of the great drought which has been afflicting this country for the past two years. If I can find the cause, I hope to end it."
"Oh! I had a sneaking hope that we were in for another skirmish with that Russian chap, Saranoff, whose men started that poison here."
"I rather think we are, Colonel Wesley."
General Merton laughed.
"I'll swallow a good deal, Dr. Bird," he said, "but when you talk of an individual being responsible for the great drought, it's a little too much. A man can't control the weather, you know!"
"Yet a man, or an incarnate devil—I don't know which he is—did control the weather once, as well as the sun. But for the humble efforts of two Americans, aided by a Russian girl whose brother Saranoff had murdered, he might be still controlling it."