CHAPTER XX
THE GOVERNMENT ACCEPTS
"Whew! Let me sit down somewhere and get my breath!" gasped Tom, when it was all over.
"I should think you would want a bit of quiet," replied Ned. "You've been on the jump since early morning."
"Bless my dining-room table!" cried Mr. Damon, "I should say so! I'll go tell the cook to get us all a good meal—we need it," for a competent cook had been installed in the old farmhouse where Tom and his party had their headquarters.
"But you did the trick, Tom, old man!" exclaimed Ned, fervently, as he looked down the valley and saw the receding water. For, with the opening of the channel into the other valley the flood, at no time particularly dangerous near Preston, was subsiding rapidly.
"He sure did," declared the foreman. "No one else could have done it, either."
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