Harry joined the Colonel at Stone’s Landing, and that dead place sprang into sudden life.  A swarm of men were hard at work, and the dull air was filled with the cheery music of labor.  Harry had been constituted engineer-in-general, and he threw the full strength of his powers into his work.  He moved among his hirelings like a king.  Authority seemed to invest him with a new splendor.  Col.  Sellers, as general superintendent of a great public enterprise, was all that a mere human being could be —­and more.  These two grandees went at their imposing “improvement” with the air of men who had been charged with the work of altering the foundations of the globe.

They turned their first attention to straightening the river just above the Landing, where it made a deep bend, and where the maps and plans showed that the process of straightening would not only shorten distance but increase the “fall.”  They started a cut-off canal across the peninsula formed by the bend, and such another tearing up of the earth and slopping around in the mud as followed the order to the men, had never been seen in that region before.  There was such a panic among the turtles that at the end of six hours there was not one to be found within three miles of Stone’s Landing.  They took the young and the aged, the decrepit and the sick upon their backs and left for tide-water in disorderly procession, the tadpoles following and the bull-frogs bringing up the rear.

Saturday night came, but the men were obliged to wait, because the appropriation had not come.  Harry said he had written to hurry up the money and it would be along presently.  So the work continued, on Monday.  Stone’s Landing was making quite a stir in the vicinity, by this time.  Sellers threw a lot or two on the market, “as a feeler,” and they sold well.  He re-clothed his family, laid in a good stock of provisions, and still had money left.  He started a bank account, in a small way—­and mentioned the deposit casually to friends; and to strangers, too; to everybody, in fact; but not as a new thing—­on the contrary, as a matter of life-long standing.  He could not keep from buying trifles every day that were not wholly necessary, it was such a gaudy thing to get out his bank-book and draw a check, instead of using his old customary formula, “Charge it” Harry sold a lot or two, also—­and had a dinner party or two at Hawkeye and a general good time with the money.  Both men held on pretty strenuously for the coming big prices, however.

At the end of a month things were looking bad.  Harry had besieged the New York headquarters of the Columbus River Slack-water Navigation Company with demands, then commands, and finally appeals, but to no purpose; the appropriation did not come; the letters were not even answered.  The workmen were clamorous, now.  The Colonel and Harry retired to consult.

“What’s to be done?” said the Colonel.

“Hang’d if I know.”