Afloat on the Flood Part 13

"None of us have ever been as far down the river as this," he remarked; "I know I haven't, anyway."

"I was down once years ago, and saw the big falls where we might have taken a header if we'd kept drifting," Bandy-legs explained; "but say, I don't seem to remember the first thing about the country. You could lose me down here without any trouble, I guess. Plenty of forest all right, eh, Max; and we won't have any great time makin' a fire, if only we get matches? Mine are all wet."

"I carry a few in a waterproof case," Max told him; "so don't let that worry you any, Bandy-legs. The question is with us, after the fire, what? We'll all be hungry and the girls haven't had a bite to eat since early morning."

"Well, there's a house, surrounded by water," suggested Steve; "guess we'll have to cabbage anything we can find around loose. In times like this you can't wait to ask permission. Eat first, and pay for it afterwards, that's the motto we'll have to go by. If we're on the right side of the luck fence we might even run across a smoked ham hangin' from the rafters. They keep all kinds of good things sometimes in these cabins along the sh.o.r.e."

"Seems to be something like a hencoop back of the house," added Bandy-legs.

"Oh! s-s-say, don't go to g-g-getting a feller's m-m-mouth all made up for nice r-r-roast chicken, and then never find any," objected Toby.

"Course we'll find all sorts of good things," declared Bandy-legs, stoutly; "why, look what's happened to us already; and tell me that this ain't our lucky day. We went down with the old bridge, but not one of us got thrown into the water. Then we sailed twenty miles, and dropped in on the roof of the French house just like we'd been drawn by a magnet, which p'raps some of us must a been, hey, Steve? And then, by George! just when we wanted a boat the worst ever, along came this tub, and heading straight in for our shaky roost like it was being piloted by hands none of us could see. Luck? Why, we've got it plastered all over us, from head to foot. Chickens, ham, anything you want, just ask for it, and then wait and have faith!"

"We're glad that you feel so certain," Mazie told him, "because I'm ready to own up that I'm awfully hungry, and could eat almost anything just now."

"And I'm beginning to feel a little weak myself," admitted Bessie; "which, I suppose, is caused from going without any regular meal. None of us dared go back down through that trap once we got on the roof, because we were afraid the house might float off while we were below.

Yes, we hope there will be something you can get in that house."

"Seems to be abandoned, all right," Steve remarked, shading his eyes with his hands in order to see better.

"There's somebody over on the bank beyond, and as near as I can make out it's an old woman," Max told them just at that point; "perhaps she's guarding some of the stuff that was saved from the cabin when the water came up around it; while her man has gone to get a horse and wagon, or a boat."

"Well, we're going to land here," Bandy-legs ventured; "and it won't be hard to go up and interview the old lady. P'raps we can make a bargain with her for some of her grub. I've got a dollar along with me, and I reckon some of the rest ought to make as good a showing."

"There'll be no trouble about that part of it, if only the food is around," Max a.s.sured them. "If the worst comes we'll have to commandeer the food market, and settle afterwards. Can you make it all right, Shack?"

"Easy as fallin' off a log," replied the stout boy, who was still wielding the sculling oar back and forth with that peculiar turning motion that presented the broad surface of the blade to the water all the time, and induced the boat to move forward with a steady action.

He made his words good a few minutes later, for the stem of the boat ran gently up against the bank, where a log offered a good chance for disembarking.

No one would want a better landing stage; and so the three girls managed to go ash.o.r.e without wetting their feet any more than they had been before.

Every one seemed glad to get on solid ground again. Even Max secretly admitted that it did feel very good to know he had no longer to depend on the whims of the current, but could go wherever he willed.

"Let's hunt out a decent place to make a camp," he remarked, "and then after we get the shelter started, and the cheery fire warming things up, two of us ought to wander off up the bank and see what's doing around that house."

"I'll go with yon, Max," said Bandy-legs hastily, as though more or less afraid that he might come in a poor second, as it was a case of "first come, first served."

They drew the boat well up, and fastened it with the length of rope that served as a painter; the clothes-line Max thought to take along with him, as there was a possibility they might need it before through with this adventure.

Then they started through the woods, which just at this point happened to be unusually dense, with great trees rearing their crests a hundred feet or so above the heads of the shipwrecked Crusoes.

It was not long before Max called attention to a certain spot which he claimed would answer all their present needs.

"There's plenty of stuff to make a shelter of brush and branches with,"

he observed, "though it would be easier all around if we had a hatchet along."

"That's right," added Steve; "and if I'd only had any idea that old bridge was going to dump us all into the drink the way it did I'd have had lots of things fixed different, give you my affidavy I would. But we ought to be able to work a fairly decent brush shanty without. It won't be the first we've put up, and I certainly hope it isn't goin' to be the last, either."

Filled with this winning spirit the boys quickly busied themselves.

Shack gathered brush with the rest, and really did more than his share of the work. This was right in his element, and no one had to tell him how to proceed.

Max waited to see things progressing before he started off. A fire had already been started, and the cheery flames did much toward dispelling the feeling of gloom that had begun to gnaw at their hearts. There is nothing in the world better calculated to dissipate worry and liven things up than a genuine camp-fire. It seems to dissipate doubt, give the heart something to grip, and in every way make the prospect brighter.

After escaping from the flood without any serious damage they were all full of enthusiasm now. Even the two older girls insisted on helping later on; if only food could be procured the boys must let them do all the cooking. That was only a fair distribution of the labor; it was what happened in Indian camps, with the warriors securing game, and the squaws preparing the meals.

Presently Max, catching the eye of Bandy-legs, crooked his finger, and made a significant gesture with his head. The other understood just what was in the wind for he dropped the armful of fuel he happened at the time to be carrying toward the fire, and hastened to reach the side of the leader.

Max knew that just then they could not think of walking any distance in order to seek aid. The day was pretty well along, and as more rain might come with the night, it seemed the part of prudence that they prepare in advance to meet further trials. If only they managed to come across something that could be made to do for a supper, all else could for the time being be forgotten.

"We're off, Steve," Max called out, after he had waved his hand in the direction of the girl whose eyes followed him wherever he went; "you three keep right along as you're doing now. Make the shack as snug as you can; and if it'll shed water, so much the better; though I don't think we're going to get any more rain just at present."

Bandy-legs was at his side, and together they strode away. It was no great task to keep heading up-stream, because they had frequent glimpses of the heaving surface of the flood, which was ever at their right, because they had landed on the western sh.o.r.e, and were heading north at the time.

"Thought I heard dogs abarkin' just then," observed Bandy-legs, who had good ears as well as sharp eyes.

"Yes, I did too, but somewhere away up on the wooded hills there. Like as not this flood has chased plenty of dogs away from their homes, and they may be running in packs, hunting something to eat."

"Huh! hope we don't happen to run foul of a pack then," Bandy-legs insinuated; "and for fear that we do I'm going to be ready."

With that he picked up a rather stout cudgel which he swung a few times as if to accustom his arm to the motion.

Apparently Max did not think there was any particular reason for alarm.

He must have figured that the dogs they had heard were hunting game a mile or two back in the woods, and that there was little chance of their coming closer to the river.

"I can see the house ahead there," he announced five minutes later.

"Yes, and it's surrounded by water too," added his chum; "no wonder the folks got out and left; they'd be silly to stay till it was too late.

Why, that cabin might be carried off any time like the other house was, even if it ain't so far out I reckon we must have drifted half a mile further down when we kept rowing so hard; because that was a stiff current, believe me."

"Fully half a mile, Bandy-legs," Max a.s.sured him, and then fell to craning his neck in the endeavor to locate the woman they believed they had seen among the trees at a point where the water ended.

Two minutes later and Max uttered a satisfied exclamation.

"I see the woman," he told his companion, "and just as we thought she's an old person, bent over considerably. Perhaps she couldn't go far away after she had to quit her house; perhaps she's nearly as helpless as the crippled French child. If it wasn't for Mabel being unable to walk we might be trying to find shelter back in the country right now.

Come on and we'll interview her. She may be glad to go with us, and spend the night in camp; it would be good for her and the girls would like it too."

The old woman had seen their approach. She looked anything but happy, and Max really began to believe that the poor soul stood in danger of losing all she owned in the wide world, if her little cabin went out with the flood.

"How do you do, ma'm?" he said, cheerily, as he and his chum came up.

"We're all from the town of Carson. The bridge went out, and we were on it at the time. It carried five of us down to where the French farm-house was standing, half under water, and there we found three girls on the roof, two of them friends of ours from town. A boat happened to drift within reach, and we have come ash.o.r.e. But as Asa French's little daughter, Mabel, is lame and weak the chances are we'll have to camp in the woods for the night, and go for help in the morning. Now, wouldn't you like to join us to-night, because it'll be a lonely time for you here, and it may start in and rain again? We want to get something to eat the worst kind, and have money to buy whatever you happen to have handy, chickens, ham, potatoes or anything at all. The girls are nearly starved they say. Now how about it, ma'm?"

The little old woman had listened to him talking with a sparkle of interest in her eyes. Apparently she admired the lad from the very start. Bandy-legs was hardly prepossessing enough to hope to make a favorable impression on a stranger at first sight; you had to know the boy with the crooked legs in order to appreciate his good qualities; but Max won friends by the score even before they understood how clever he could be.

"You're perfectly welcome to anything you can find in my cabin, providing that you can get out there, and secure it," the little old woman told them. "Perhaps you might manage with the aid of the boat.

And I believe I'll accept your kind invitation to accompany you back to your camp. I'm accustomed to being by myself, but inside a house, not out in the open woods, and on the brink of a dreadful flood. So consider it a bargain, son. Show me the way to get there, and after that it may pay you to bring your boat up so as to reach my little house out there surrounded by water."