“I have never been able to get a written order from this superintendent for any detail of the work since he has been here,” said Sanford in a positive tone, “and he has never raised his hand to help us. What the cause of his enmity is I do not know. We have all of us tried to treat him courteously and follow his orders whenever it was possible to do so. He insisted on this change after both my master diver, Caleb West here, Captain Joe Bell, and others of my best men had protested against it, and we had either to stop work and appeal to the Board, and so lose the summer’s work and be liable to the government for non-completion on time, or obey him. I took the latter course, and you can see the result. It was my only way out of the difficulty.” At this instant there came a crash which sounded like breaking china, evidently in the shanty, and a cloud of white dust, the contents of a partly empty flour-barrel, sifted out through the open window. The general turned his head in inquiry, and, seeing nothing unusual, continued:— “You should have stopped work, sir, and appealed. The government does not want its work done in a careless, unworkmanlike way, and will not pay for it.” His voice had a tone in it that sent a pang of anxiety to Mrs. Leroy’s heart. Carleton smiled grimly. He was all right, he said to himself. Nobody believed the Yankee skipper. Before Sanford could gather his wits in reply the shanty door was flung wide open, and Nickles backed out, carrying in his arms a pine door, higher and wider than himself. He had lifted it from its hinges in the pantry, upsetting everything about it. “I guess mebbe I ain’t been a-watchin’ this all summer fur nothin’, gents,” he said, planting the door squarely before the general. “You kin read it fur yerself,—it’s ’s plain ’s print. If ye want what ye call an ‘order,’ here it is large as life.” It was the once clean pine door of the shanty, on which Sanford and the men had placed their signatures in blue pencil the day the level was fixed, and Carleton, defying Sanford, had said it should “go that way” or he would stop the work! General Barton adjusted his eyeglasses and began reading the inscription. A verbatim record of Carleton’s instructions was before him. The other members of the Board crowded around, reading it in silence. General Barton replaced his gold-rimmed eyeglasses carefully in their case, and for a moment looked seaward in an abstracted sort of way. The curiously inscribed door had evidently made a deep impression upon him. “I had forgotten about that record, general,” said Sanford, “but I am very glad it has been preserved. It was made at the time, so we could exactly carry out the superintendent’s instructions. As to its truth, I should prefer you to ask the men who signed it. They are all here around you.” The general looked again at Captain Joe and Caleb. There was no questioning their integrity. Theirs were faces that disarmed suspicion at once.