did this;
somehow, someway he did it, and he flaunts it in our faces. Look
there!" and he pointed to a huge signboard that had been erected
overnight just opposite the entrance to Burnit Avenue. In huge, bold
letters, surmounted by a giant hand that pointed the way, it told
prospective investors to buy property in the high and dry Trimmer
Addition, the words "High and Dry" being twice as large as any other
lettering upon the board.

"It is surely a lot of nerve," admitted Platt, "but it is rank
nonsense to say that the man had anything to do with this catastrophe.
It would have been impossible. Let's look this thing over. Drive past
the club-house to the extreme west side."

Once more they traversed the mud of Burnit Avenue, and upon the dry,
sloping ground the young engineer, cursing his inexperience, alighted
and walked along the edge of the property, seeking a solution to the
mystery. Still perplexed, he ascended the rising ground and looked
musingly across at the yet swollen and clay-red river. Suddenly an
exclamation escaped his lips.

"There's your enemy," he said to Bobby who had climbed up beside him,
and pointed to the river. "The river bank, I am sure, must edge upon a
tilted shale formation which dips just below this basin. Probably at
all times some of the water from the river seeps down between two
sand-separated layers of this formation to find its outlet in the
marsh, and it is this water which, through a geological freak, has
supplied that swamp for ages. In the spring, however, and in
extraordinary flood times, it probably finds a higher and looser
stratum, and rushes down here with all the force of a hydraulic
stream. This spring it took it a long time to wet thoroughly all our
made ground from the bottom upward. The frost, sinking deeper in this
loose, wet soil than elsewhere, held it back, too, for a time, but as
soon as this was thoroughly out of the ground the river overflow came
up like a geyser.

"Mr. Burnit, your Applerod Addition is ruined, and it can never be
saved, unless by some extraordinary means. Nature picked out this
spot, centuries and centuries ago, for a swamp, and she's going to
have one here in spite of all that we can do. In five years this basin
won't be a thing but black water and weeds, with only that club-house
as a decaying monument to your enterprise."

Bobby controlled himself with an effort. His face was drawn and white;
but part of that was from the anxiety of the