d
been caught by his own tune.

"Over the top," some one shouted.

He was surrounded.

"That's you! That's you!"

they kept singing. He had never been caught in such a mix-up before. He
saw them all crowding about him, saw Roy Blakeley's merry face and the
sober face of Brent Gaylong, the spectacles still half way down his nose
and the baton over his ear like a lead pencil. They took his hat, tossed
it around, and handed it back to him.

"No room on that for the Cross," said Gaylong; "he'll have to pin it on
his stocking; combination Gold Cross and garter. Supreme
heroism--keeping a stocking up----"

There was no getting out of this predicament. He could escape the
quicksand but he couldn't escape this. He looked about as if to consider
whether he could make a leap over the throng.

"Watch out or he'll pull a stunt," one shouted.

But there was really no hope for him. The wandering minstrel was caught
at last. And the funny part of the whole business was that he was caught
by one of his own favorite tunes. The tunes which had caught so many
others....

CHAPTER XXXIII

QUESTIONS

Hervey had now no incentive to leave the vicinity of camp. Doubtless he
could have performed the great stunt without outside help (now that he
knew it to be a stunt) but luck favored him as it usually did, and the
new work going forward in the cove was enough to occupy his undivided
attention.

He made his headquarters there and hobnobbed with civil engineers and
laborers in the true democratic spirit which was his. The consulting
engineer they called him, which was odd, because Hervey never consulted
anybody about anything. The men all liked him immensely.

Another to benefit by the work on the new dam was Robin Hood, or Mr.
Hood as he was respectfully called. He ran the flivver truck between
the camp and the cove, carrying stone, and also cement and supplies
which came by the railroad. They had to cut a road from the main road
through to the cove.

But one thing was not brought by the flivver, and that was the suction
dredge, a horrible monster, a kind of jumble of house and machinery
which came on a big six-ton truck and was launched into the lake. Its
whole ramshackle bulk shook and shivered when it was in operation
sucking the bottom of the lake up through a big pipe and shooting it
through another long pipe which terminated on the land. Thus sand and
gravel were secured and at the same time the lake was dred