the levee while Elvira commented to herself, “Gee! Them city gals sho do ack perculiar.”
The night of a thousand hours had passed, a night of toil, of anxiety and of dread. Dawn broadened upon a waste of ravening waters; the brilliant Southern stars grew dim, and a file of ghostly men took shape again, men who all night long had climbed up and down the levee's slope, bearing sandbags from the barge.
All night long this procession had marched in front of Jessica, snatching up her sacks faster than she could fill them. On, on they moved, one phantom giving place to another—another. Over the levee's rim, out of the swamp they came; back into the swamp they vanished, to come and come again. Those vast black spaces beyond the embankment seemed peopled by ever-tramping specters of the damned, devouring sacks, sacks, sacks, more sacks, more sacks, more sacks. All night long the girl in brown breeches had knelt on the barge's floor, her sleeves rolled up and white arms bare. Sleepily she held each sack's mouth gaping open for the shovel, and struggled to keep her head from nodding. Mr. Brookfield had succumbed to utter weariness and slept on a pile of empty bags, while grouchy Rutherford still glared at her grumpily from his seat upon a nail keg.
Suddenly the girl's head lifted with a jerk, as out of the monotonous tramping she recognized a step, Furlong's step, that through the slaving hours she had come to listen for. Many times had Furlong looked in upon her, as the tireless engineer looked in upon everybody else, with a cheery nod and a hand that ever so lightly touched her shoulder.
“Well?” She glanced up.
“We've saved our levee.” He sank on a sandbag, and she saw the exhaustion that he concealed from others.
“I'm so thankful!” Jessica answered fervently
“So am I—for the sake of these indomitable people. But, Jess, you are worn out.”
“No such thing,” with the same little toss of the same little stubborn head.
“I just wanted to sit down here and talk with you a minute—we may not have another minute for a month. Listen, Jessica, you and the senator are leaving here at once and”
“No, we are not.”
“Yes, you are. Mr. Brookfield's car will put you in Vicksburg by ten o'clock, to rejoin the boat.”
“But I don't want to rejoin the boat.” She shook her head. “I want to stay here, with you, until this water goes down.”
“No, Jess; that's not fair to you, or to dad. My work here is done when this levee is absolutely safe. Then I'll come back to New York. You and the senator are starting now, in five minutes. All right, senator.” He roused the sleeper. 'We are ready.”
Through the mists of early morning two shadowy brown figures walked side by side along the crest of the levee at Boggy Bayou. They seemed to be men. Both wore breeches. Both were muddy, and happy. They were leaving the barge and the sack bearers behind. Ahead of them, somewhere in the gloom, an automobile kept honking. At their heels limped a presidential possibility with his gripsack.
“Here's our car, senator.” Furlong helped Rutherford into the auto, keeping Jessica beside him to the very last.
“Now don't forget, Jess,” he impressed it upon her. “Tell Colonel Clancy what's happened here. Tell him that when the levee began to cave we built our bulkheads across the top, inside and out, filling in between with gravel. It's standing firm. And the flow from the sand boil is reduced to almost nothing.”
Then ex-Major Grimshaw of the A. E. F. stepped back a pace and smiled as he touched his hat brim in mock salute:
“Attention, Courier Faison! You shall bear the news of victory. Report to Colonel Clancy that we have plenty of material, with twelve hundred well-organized men. And by the grace of God we'll hold this line.”
The trim brown figure stood before him very stiffly until he whispered: “Good-by, Jess. I'm sorry you traveled such a distance for this unsatisfactory visit.”
“Unsatisfactory? Oh, Furlong, can't you see how happy I am? And how proud of you? I never loved you in New York, not as I love you—now.”
Contrary to all regulations ex-Major Grimshaw half smothered his courier, and with most unmilitary salutes sent the moist-eyed Jessica speeding on her way.
“Oh, Jess,” he shouted after her, “I won't forget to send your trunk.”
