ient inhabitant existed.
Twelve hours of it had made rivers of the streets, quagmires of the
roads, and covered the crossings ankle-deep with mud. It had begun in
the night while Isaac was expounding his views on snuff boxes, tunnels,
and Voltaire to Peter and Jack, had followed Jack across the river and
had continued to soak into his clothes until he opened Mrs. Hicks's
front door with his private key. It was still pelting away the next
morning, when Jack, alarmed at its fury, bolted his breakfast, and,
donning his oilskins and rubber boots, hurried to the brick office from
whose front windows he could get a view of the fill, the culvert, and
the angry stream, and from whose rear windows could be seen half a mile
up the raging torrent, the curve of the unfinished embankment flanking
one side of the new boulevard which McGowan was building under a
contract with the village.

Hardly had he slipped off his boots and tarpaulins when MacFarlane, in
mackintosh and long rubber boots, splashed in:

"Breen," said his Chief, loosening the top button of his storm coat and
threshing the water from his cap:

Jack was on his feet in an instant:

"Yes, sir."

"I wish you would take a look at the boulevard spillway. I know
McGowan's work and how he skins it sometimes, and I'm getting worried.
Coggins says the water is backing up, and that the slopes are giving
way. You can see yourself what a lot of water is coming down--" here
they both gazed through the open window. "I never saw that stream look
like that since I've been here; there must be a frightful pressure now
on McGowan's retaining walls. We should have a close shave if anything
gave way above us. Our own culvert's working all right, but it's taxed
now to its utmost."

Jack unhooked his water-proof from a nail behind the door--he had began
putting on his rubber boots again before MacFarlane finished speaking.

"He will have to pay the bills, sir, if anything gives way--" Jack
replied in a determined voice. "Garry told me only last week that
McGowan had to take care of his own water; that was part of his
contract. It comes under Garry's supervision, you know."

"Yes, I know, and that may all be so, Breen," he replied with a
flickering smile, "but it won't do us any good,--or the road either.
They want to run cars next month."

The door again swung wide, and a man drenched to the skin, the water
glistening on his bushy gray beard stepped in.

"I heard you were here,