ou come
to us?"

Anthony Crawford moistened his dry lips, but he did not speak. There
was a pause, though all of them knew that every second the waters of
Medford River were sweeping higher and higher. It was finally Tom
Brighton who answered his own question.

"You were afraid to go elsewhere. It was your doing, this flood; you
took the land, you neglected the dikes, you sent John Massey away who
would have watched against such a disaster as this. You were afraid to
face those men, below, and tell them what you had done."

The other nodded.

"I haven't a friend in Medford Valley to help me--except you. Yes, I
was afraid to face them; the break is in just the place where it may
flood the whole bottom land. I thought they wouldn't move to help me
until it was too late. And, on my life, Tom Brighton, if we can stop
the flood I do not care what becomes of me."

It was quite true, as they could all see, that the man's desperate
terror was not all for himself, that the situation was far too bad for
that. He was picturing how the whole torrent of Medford River might
soon be sweeping across those fields of ripening grain, those
comfortable barns with their cows and sheep and horses, those
pleasant white farmhouses where a hundred people lay asleep. He was
seeing how, little by little, he had built up the wrong that was to be
his ruin, he had driven away his friends, he had seized the land, he
had turned off its guardian, and now, in a wild whirlwind, the results
of his misdoing were upon him. He did not look at Tom Brighton's set
face but at Jasper Peyton, the one he had wronged most.

"A man can't live without friends," he said. "Will you stand by me,
Jasper, not for what I deserve, but for what I need?"

"Yes," answered Jasper Peyton. He smiled suddenly, with all the old,
tense misery quite gone from his face. "We're going to stand by you,
Anthony, all of us. We are with you still."

CHAPTER XII

MEDFORD RIVER

Cousin Tom was giving rapid directions as they went out to the waiting
automobiles. "I will go on with Jasper and we will pick up some men
from the farms as we pass. Anthony, you had better come with Oliver,
we shall want to crowd in all the farmers we can. What is it, Polly?
You want to come with me? I suspect you think you are going to keep
your father out of danger and I think the same of you. There is room
in front here, between us; jump in!"

The engine grumbled and roared and the first car