Part 24 (1/2)
Presently trees and wreckage of different sorts were seen drifting down, and there came a rus.h.i.+ng sound which added greatly to the weirdness of the scene.
”This beats me!” Jule muttered. ”The flood has been going down for nearly a week. There must have been heavy rains up to the north, and at the sources of the rivers emptying into the Mississippi. I wonder if it will do anything to us?”
At that moment a timber crashed against the _Rambler_, jarring it considerably.
Clay and the others were out of their bunks in a minute, and out on deck to see what had taken place. Alex. was the first one to grasp the situation.
”We'll have to turn on the motors to hold this boat,” he said. ”The anchor lies in the mud, and will pull away at the first push of a current. First thing we know, we'll be down there in a cypress swamp!”
”You're excited!” Case called out. ”We pa.s.sed the flood two days ago.”
”That's the trouble,” Alex. explained. ”We pa.s.sed the flood! The crest of it is still to the north of us. It has undoubtedly been raining up river, and that has swelled the volume of water.”
”Do you mean that we got down the river in advance of the flood?”
demanded Case.
”We have been going a little faster than the current, haven't we, notwithstanding our tying up nights?” Alex. asked. ”This little boat has been going some! To-night the crest of the flood overtakes us.
See?”
”It doesn't look reasonable!” Case insisted. ”I don't believe it!”
”The kid is right,” Clay declared. ”I have often read about boats meeting the flood the second time, once when they pa.s.sed it, and once when it caught up with them.”
The roaring sound which Mose had referred to now grew louder, sounding like the rush of a long and heavily loaded freight train.
While the lads listened, hardly knowing what to do to protect themselves, Mose pointed a shaking hand at a spot far down the lagoon.
Clay looked and saw a great blaze on what seemed a wooded knoll to the west of the river.
”There's a camp down there!” he said.
”That makes it nice!” grinned Alex. ”No honest men ever made camp in that hole at this season of the year! It is dollars to tripe that if we don't put on power the crest of the flood will wash us down, when the full strength comes, and beach us among a band of river pirates!
If we don't get under way up stream we'll have do to something to make the anchor hold!”
While the boys were discussing some way of accomplis.h.i.+ng this, for they did not like the idea of breasting the flood, the crest of the flood came seething down the stream, a wall of water four feet high!
It swept over the point of land between the river and the bayou and dashed against the _Rambler_.
The anchor held for a minute, then the boys knew that they were in motion. The current seemed stronger there than in the river itself.
”The water is cutting a new channel below,” Clay shouted, as the _Rambler_ was swept away, ”and we are headed for that swamp. Now, we are in a peck of trouble!”
CHAPTER XIX
PILGRIMS FROM OLD CHICAGO
The ”peck of trouble” referred to as their portion by Clay turned out to be a full bushel, and good measure at that, in a very short time.