Chapter XVI. A Warning - Page 2

valley, and there was ample room to attain the thirty-mile range without doing any damage.

At the head of the valley, some miles from where the giant cannon was mounted, was an immense dam, built recently by a water company for impounding a stream and furnishing a supply of drinking water for a distant city. At the other end of the valley was the thriving village of Preston. A railroad ran there, and it was to Preston station that Tom's big gun had been sent, to be transported afterward, on specially made trucks, drawn by powerful autos, to the place where it was now mounted.

Tom had been obliged to buy a piece of land on which to build the temporary carriage, and also contract for a large slice of the opposite mountain, as a target against which to fire his projectiles.

The valley, as I have said, was desolate. It was thickly wooded in spots, and in the centre, near the big dam, which held back the waters of an immense artificial lake, was a great hill, evidently a relic of some glacial epoch. This hill was a sort of division between two valleys.

Tom, Ned, Mr. Damon, with Koku, and some of the employees of the steel company, had hired a deserted farmhouse not far from the place where the gun was being mounted. In this they lived, while Tom directed operations.

"The paper says 'clear' tomorrow," read Ned, on his return. "'Clear, with freshening winds.'"

"That means rain, with no wind at all," declared Tom, with a sigh. "Well, it can't be helped. As Mr. Damon says, it will clear some time."

"Bless my overshoes!" exclaimed the odd gentleman. "It always has cleared; hasn't it?"

No one could deny this.

There came a slackening in the showers, and Tom and Ned, donning raincoats, went out to see how the work was progressing. They found the men from the steel concern busy at the great piece of engineering.

"How are you coming on?" asked Tom of the foreman.

"We could finish it in two days if this rain would only let up," replied the man.

"Well, let's hope that it will," observed Tom.

"If it doesn't, there's likely to be trouble up above," went on the foreman, nodding in the direction of the great dam.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that the water is getting too high. The dam is weakening, I heard."

"Is that so? Why, I thought they had made it to stand any sort of a flood."

"They evidently didn't count on one like this. They've got the engineer who built it up there, and they're doing their best to strengthen it. I also heard that they're preparing to dynamite it to open breeches here and there in it, in case it is likely to give way suddenly."

"You don't mean it! Say, if it does go out with a rush it will wipe out the