Ted craned his neck eagerly to watch the movements of Will's pencil.
"You know," began Will, with his head on one side, "in some parts of the world, when they want to make the tide work for them, they use things they call 'warping dikes.' These run on a slant out from the shore toward the channel. They generally slope up stream pretty sharply. The tide comes in, loaded right up with fine mud, flows over and into and around the long lines of warping dike, then stops and begins to unload. Now, you see, when there are no warping dikes, the current has nothing to delay it, so it soon gets going on the ebb so fast that it washes away pretty near all it has deposited. But these warping dikes bring in a new state of affairs. They so hinder the ebb that there is more silt deposited, and at the same time there is less current on the flats to carry the mud away. As the engineers say, there is not so much 'scouring'--a first-rate word to express it. Haven't you noticed how, in some spots, the current seems to scour away all the mud and leave naked stones and pebbles?"
"Yes," exclaimed Ted, "I get hold of the idea now. And when the warping dikes have got their work in, what then?"
"Why, we'll dike the whole cove in. A short bit of dike from that corner straight across to the point will do it. We'll be able to get at it in a couple of months; and then, if you and I can't put the job through before the ground gets frozen, why, I'll hire help, that's all!"
"But it's a pretty big contract you're giving us, isn't it?" queried Ted, doubtfully. "Those warping dikes you're talking of look to me like an all summer's job. What'll they be like, anyway?"
"O, they'll be very slight. We can run them, with the help of old Jerry to haul for us, in less than no time, working evenings and wet days. We'll just lay lines of brush a foot high, and pile heavy stones along the top to keep it in place. Then we can raise them a little higher as the place fills up!"
"O!" murmured Ted, greatly relieved. "I thought we'd have to dig them all, like the other dikes."
After this the boys' talk was of nothing but deposits and warping dikes and scouring. Their evenings and rainy days, usually spent in their mother's company and in study, were now devoted to the labor of hauling stones and brush down to the shore of the cove. To Mrs. Carter they explained the scheme, but without reference to its connection with Mr. Israel Hand. She grasped its possibilities at once, being clear-headed except where her prejudices were involved.
"How many acres do you expect to reclaim?" she inquired, after praising Will's sagacity warmly.
"Well," said Will, "of course we won't have it surveyed till the work's done and we are sure of the property; but I have an idea it will go a good ten acres, or maybe twelve."