Brandon of the Engineers

Bethune looked surprised, but laughed. "The wine isn't very good, but the

others seem able to stand for it. I once laid out a mine ditch in a

neighborhood where you'd have wanted some courage to throw away a drink

the boys had given you."

"It was very bad manners," Dick answered awkwardly. "Still, I didn't like

the taste----"

He stopped, noticing that Jake gave him a keen glance, but Stuyvesant

filled his glass and drank.

"What's the matter with the wine?" he asked.

Dick hesitated. He wanted to let the matter drop, but he had treated

Bethune rudely and saw that the others were curious.

"It didn't taste as it did when I left it. Of course this may have been

imagination."

"But you don't think so?" Stuyvesant rejoined. "In fact, you suspect the

wine was doped after we went out?"

"No," said Dick with a puzzled frown; "I imagine any doping stuff would

make it sour. The curious thing is that it tasted better than usual but

stronger."

Stuyvesant picked up the glass and smelt it, for a little of the liquor

remained in the bottom.

"It's a pity you threw it out, because there's a scent mine hasn't got.

Like bad brandy or what the Spaniards call madre de vino and use for

bringing light wine up to strength."

Then Bethune took the glass from him and drained the last drops. "I think

it is madre de vino. Pretty heady stuff and that glass would hold a

lot."

Stuyvesant nodded, for it was not a wineglass but a small tumbler.

"Doping's not an unusual trick, but I can't see why anybody should want

to make Brandon drunk."

"It isn't very plain and I may have made a fuss about nothing," Dick

replied, and began to talk about something else with Jake's support.

The others indulged them, and after a time the party broke up. The moon

had risen when Dick and Jake walked back along the dam, but the latter

stopped when they reached the gap.

"We'll climb down and cross by the sluice instead of the pipe," he said.

"Why?" Dick asked. "The light is better than when we came."

Jake gave him a curious look. "Your nerve's pretty good, but do you want

to defy your enemies and show them you have found out their trick?"

"But I haven't found it out; that is, I don't know the object of it yet."