But clever as he was, he did not get his fingers on them. Waves of discontent, threats of riots and strikes, protests against liberty loans and food laws, continued to agitate the town, filling it with anxiety and irritation. They kept her distrustful of herself, unhappy in her undertaking, but never did they turn her from her resolve to do her full part. Indeed, it seemed to Dick sometimes as if the direct result was to drive those of the town who felt the deepest foreboding, the gravest doubt, to work the harder, thus really increasing the amount accomplished. It was this that explained why, in this admixture of irritation, Sabinsport almost always did more than her part. The rumors and prophecies that she would not respond this time nerved her to fuller efforts. Just how things would have worked out in Sabinsport, just when and how the war would have found its way to her heart and she would have come to have the supporting uplift of realizing the greatness of the enterprise to which she was pledged, Dick never quite decided, for what did happen was so largely shaped by the news that came to them in the end of June that, in the country twenty-five miles away, the Government had decided to place one of the sixteen great cantonments in which the boys that had been drafted were to be trained into an army. Sabinsport herself had had nothing to do with securing the cantonment. It was the only thing that had happened in that part of the State in the last two or three decades in which neither Cowder nor Mulligan had had a hand. It was certain shrewd and powerful gentlemen of the City that had persuaded the authorities that this was the most perfect spot in the Union in which to place 50,000 men. Luckily, it was a very good spot, though probably if it had been very bad, it would have been selected, given the power that was behind its support. The land was rolling, naturally drained, the river which flowed close by gave, by filtering, a splendid water supply. An important trunk line ran within five miles of the camp, making almost ideal transportation conditions possible, and this same trunk line ran through Sabinsport. It was announced that the camp was to be ready in twelve weeks for 40,000 men. The town, accustomed to building in a fairly large scale, gasped in amazement. Some jeered, others protested. It couldn't be done. It would take twelve months, not weeks, to make the place habitable.