Hood stopped the machine and got out. It would have been more like Tom to jump out and investigate for himself, especially since he had run the old truck long before Hood had ever seen it. But he did not do it. Instead, he remained seated. Hood was right, there was nothing whatever the matter with the engine. He wondered how Tom could have thought there was. Tom seemed not greatly interested until his companion climbed in, then he craned his neck out and looked down where Hood had been standing. "All right," he finally said; "I was wrong, as usual." "I think you're usually right," laughed Hood. Whatever the cause, Tom seemed thoughtful and preoccupied for the rest of the journey. He whistled some, and that was a sign that he was thinking. Once he seemed on the point of saying something. "Hood, do you----" he began. Then fell to whistling again. And so in a little while they came to the cove. CHAPTER XXXIV THE MESSAGE The altogether thrilling and extraordinary occurrence which is all that remains to be told in this narrative, was witnessed by a dozen or more scouts. It happened, as deeds of heroic impulse always happen, suddenly, so that afterwards accounts differed as to just how the thing had occurred. There are always several versions of dramatic happenings. But on one point all were agreed. It was the most conspicuous instance of outright and supreme heroism that Temple Camp had ever witnessed or known. And because there was no scout award permissible in the occasion, the boys of camp, with fine inspiration, named the new dam after the hero, who with soul possessed challenged the most horrible monster of which the human mind can conceive, threw his life into the balance with an abandon nothing less than sublime, and found his reward in the very jaws of horrible and ghastly death. And the dam was well named, too, for it represented strength superseding weakness. If you should ever visit Temple Camp you should end your inspection in time to row across the lake in the cool of the twilight, when the sun has gone down behind the mountain, and take a look at _Robin Hood's Dam_. The scene was the usual morning scene. The slanting sifter was dropping its rain of dirt through the grating and sending the stones rolling down. The mixer was revolving. A hundred feet or so from the shore the clumsy old dredge was drawing up sand from the bottom of the lake, and the big pipeline running to shore was pulsating so that the floats supporting it rocked in the water. At the end of this pipeline was a big pile of wet sand from the lake. Men were carrying this sand off in wheelbarrows. A few of the scouts were busy at their favorite pastime of walking along this shaking pipeline to the dredge from which they would dive, then swim to the nearest point on shore and proceed again as before. Hervey Willetts had been the Christopher Columbus to discover this endless chain of pleasure and he had punctuated it with many incidental stunts.