ther."

"Oh, I don't know," spoke Tom, modestly. "It just happened so. There
was one minute, though, after I got to the place in Preston where I had
stored the powder, that I didn't know whether I would succeed or not."

"How was that?" asked Mr. Damon.

"Why, in my hurry and excitement I forgot the key to the underground
storeroom where I had put the explosive. I knew there was no time to
get another, so I took a chance and burst in the door with an axe I
found in the freight depot."

"I should say you did take a chance!" declared Ned, who knew how
"freaky" the high explosive was, and how likely it was, at times, to be
set off by the least concussion.

"But it came out all right," went on Tom. "I bundled it into the other
seat of my Humming Bird, and started back."

"Had most of the folks left town?" asked the foreman.

"Nearly all," replied Tom. "The last of them were hurrying away as I
left. And it shows how scared they were, they didn't pay any attention
to me and my flying machine, though I'll wager some of them never saw
one before."

"Well, they don't need to be scared any more," put in Mr. Damon "You
saved their homes for them, Tom."

"I'd like to get hold of the fellow who doped my powder; that's what
I'd like to do," murmured the young inventor. "Ned, we'll have to be
doubly watchful from now on. But I must take a look at my gun. That
last charge may have strained it."

But the giant cannon was as perfect as the day it was turned out of the
shop. Not even the extra charge of the powerful explosive had injured
it.

"That's fine!" cried Tom, as he looked at every part. "As soon as this
flood is over we'll try some more practice shots. But we're all
entitled to a rest now."

The great gun was covered with tarpaulins to protect it from the
weather, and then all retired to the house for a bountiful meal. Late
that afternoon nearly all signs of the flood had disappeared, save that
along the edges of the creek was much driftwood, showing the height to
which the creek had risen. But it would have gone much higher had it
not been for Tom's timely shot.

The water from the impounded lake continued to pour down into the cross
valley, and did some damage, but nothing like what would have followed
its advent into Preston. The few inhabitants of the gulch into which
the young inventor had directed the flood had had warning, and had fled
in time. In Preston, some few houses nearest the banks of the rising