In one of their cow-hunting expeditions, the Allen boys went some seven or eight miles to the west, where they came to a deep but narrow little river, running down through a broad marsh, or wet prairie, which was more than a mile in width. The water in the little river was clear and quite cool. Up and down the stream, as far as the eye could see, the marsh was covered with luxuriant, nutritious “blue-joint” grass, in many places growing to a height above the boys’ heads.
Of the purchase money received for the Wisconsin “swamp land,” a certain portion was set aside for its reclamation, the direction of which work was placed in the hands of the county authorities. Mr. Allen was a natural, as well as practical civil engineer, and his investigation of the land convinced him of the value of this great tract, if it might be properly drained and dammed to take care of the annual floods coming down from the melting snows of the north. He found a place where, by cutting through one high sand knoll, a ditch might be constructed all the way in the easily-worked peat, and the waters of the little stream be thus turned into the Yellow river.
Some wealthy friends were found who were willing
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 to back Mr. Allen’s judgment, with the purchase money, and more than ten thousand acres of this land were secured. Mr. Allen was able himself to obtain from the county the contract for the drainage works.
It was late in August before arrangements could be completed for beginning the big ditch, which was to turn the waters of one river into another, and give such control over the irrigation of some thousands of acres of level land, that it might be planted with cranberry vines, and the water be held upon it during the summer months, or, drained dry, to be converted into choice farm lands, as the future should determine.
A camp house was built upon the pine knoll where the deep cut would be made, and a score of men secured who would labor as shovelers and dam builders. First, the course of the little river was to be straightened, by the meanderings being cut across, then a big dam thrown across the wide expanse of marsh, back of which the waters could be held if needful.
I suppose that never was there such another dam constructed, and yet it served its purpose well, and endured for many years. The soil of that great marsh was not what we are accustomed to call “soil”—sand or clay mixed with humus—but was composed of peat. Ages of moss and other vegetable growth had fallen and decayed into a brown mass, into which grass roots had crept, weaving the whole into a tough, fibrous blanket of from three to ten feet in thickness. The line of the ditch was staked out across the marsh, and with knives whose blades were as broad as one’s two
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 hands, and three feet long, lateral lines were cut deep into this tough peat. Then cross cuts were made the width of the to-be ditch forming squares ten inches or a foot each way. Then, with a many-pronged bent fork these squares were pulled up by the men, and there were huge “bricks” of peat, three feet long, to be laid into the wall of the dam on the downstream side.
Of course, as the water drained from the blocks of peat, the dam would be a light affair, as to weight, but as the shovelers following raised it to a height of five feet, and plastered all crevices and both sides with the soft peat from the bottom of the ditch, it formed a very compact whole.
Mr. Allen figured, and so it proved, that the grass roots would continue to grow, and in the course of a season or two the entire dam would be able to withstand with safety the pressure of a two or three feet head of water.
Rob and Ed found the work upon the dam fascinating, notwithstanding the necessity of wet feet, and back-wrenching lifting of the huge peat “bricks,” but the work at the farm prevented them from taking the permanent part they desired. Upon one of his visits home, it was evident that Mr. Allen was undergoing some unusual distress or worry of mind, and as it was the custom of the family to discuss together the problems that would come up, Mr. Allen finally acknowledged that the ditchers were at that time in an ugly mood.
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“It seems to be a question of fresh meat,” said he. “We have one or two constitutional growlers in camp, and while they are too valuable for me to turn away, they have the men stirred up against the salt pork and corned beef we have. I have made several trips to Necedah and Lisbon to try and arrange for a supply of fresh beef, but the drouth and fire of last year seem to have cut down the supply of beef cattle.”
“Father, I have an idea,” exclaimed Ed. “Do you suppose you could get along if you furnished a big dinner of game three times a week?”
“To be sure we could, son,” replied Mr. Allen, “but who is the mighty Nimrod who could shoot enough game to satisfy thirty men three times a week? and who is the millionaire who would pay for the ammunition?”
“That’s all right, father,” said Rob, “if you will give Ed and Dauphin and me the contract at the same price you would have to pay for fresh beef, I see how we can do it.”
With all due seriousness and in due form Mr. Allen drew up the contract whereby Robert Allen, Ed Allen, and Dauphin Thompson, parties of the first part, were to deliver, three times per week, until freezing weather, from twenty-five to fifty pounds, according to their pleasure, of properly dressed wild meat at the ditching camp on the Little Yellow River. In consideration of which delivery of meat, Mr. Allen, party of the second part, agreed to pay to the aforesaid parties
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 of the first part the sum of ten cents per pound for all such meat so delivered.
“Hurray!” shouted the boys, when the document was signed. “Now you’ll see who the millionaires are you are talking about.”
Mr. Allen laughed, but he returned to the ditching camp with a lighter brow, for he knew that his boys were resourceful, and it might be that they had hit upon some plan which would give good results.
Upon several acres of sod plowing, buckwheat had been sown, and had so thriven that the early September frosts had found an abundant harvest of the queer little three-cornered grains already matured. The boys found it back-breaking work to cut this field with their old-fashioned scythes, but at last it had been finished, and then raked up into piles to be thoroughly cured before being stacked.
The buckwheat harvest seemed to be taken as an invitation to feast, by the innumerable prairie chickens of the vicinity, with all their kinfolk. And they came. The boys had no reason to object as long as the birds confined themselves to gleaning the scattered grains from the field, but when they proceeded to tear down the raked-up piles, and the boys saw their hard work about to be brought to naught, their ire began to arise against the marauders.
Be it said to their credit, that the thought of killing more of the prairie chickens than could be used for food never occurred to them. But when the opportunity presented itself of saving the ditching job with
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 fresh meat, the boys eagerly fell in with Ed’s plan of making the birds pay for their feeding.
So the very next morning the boys crept along the stake-and-rider fence, until they came close to where the birds were noisily helping themselves to the buckwheat harvest. The birds were taken by surprise and ten of them were left flopping on the ground as the flock arose at the noise of the guns. The boys carefully cleaned and picked the birds, stuffing the carcasses with fresh grass. Again, when the flock came back to its evening meal, the maneuver of sneaking along the fence was repeated, as the sun was sinking in the west. Eight birds this time fell victims to the three guns, and were quickly prepared, for Dauphin was to make a moonlight ride to the camp with the forty pounds of the longed-for fresh meat.
If the children of Israel were greedy when the quails came as the result of their murmurings, these ditchers were none the less so when it became known what Dauphin had brought, and it required all the diplomacy the cook possessed to put the men off until breakfast for their prairie chicken stew.
Dauphin would be at the camp over night, so the following morning Rob and Ed took their guns and began to slowly creep along the fence toward the buckwheat field. But before they came into firing distance, they heard a shrill “ka-r-rh!” from the top of a tall, dead poplar standing near, and the whole flock took wing and sailed away to safety. The birds had posted a sentinel upon that lookout, and it was clear
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 that some other plan must now be hit upon if the boys would ............