Part 10 (1/2)

”Then you're afraid the house will go before long?” Mazie asked him; ”and that's what I've been thinking would happen every time that queer tremble seemed to pa.s.s through it. We shrieked right out the first time, but I suppose we've become partly used to it by now. But, Max, what can we do?”

”I suppose there's nothing inside that could be used in place of a boat?” he asked, thoughtfully.

”Nothing but the furniture that is floating around the rooms; though some of that has been washed out, and disappeared,” Mazie told him.

”Then we'll have to look around and see what can be done to make a raft. There are five of us boys, all stout enough to do our share of the work. We might manage to get some doors off their hinges, and fasten them together some way or other, if Bessie could only tell us where a clothes line was to be found.”

Max tried to speak quietly, as though there was no need of being alarmed; but after experiencing one of those tremors Mazie mentioned, he realized that the foundations of the farm-house were being rapidly undermined by the action of the swift running water, so that it was in danger of being carried away at any minute.

No one could say just what would happen when this catastrophe came to pa.s.s; the house might simply float down-stream, partly submerged; or it was liable to ”turn turtle,” and become a mere wreck, falling to pieces under the attacks of the waters.

And if they were still clinging to that sloping roof when this occurred they would find themselves cast into the flood, half a mile away from sh.o.r.e, and at the mercy of the elements.

Yes, there was sore need of doing something, by means of which they might better their condition; and Max Hastings was not the one to waste precious minutes dallying when action was the only thing that could save them.

CHAPTER IX

PREPARING FOR THE WORST

Upon making further inquiries Max learned that there was a trap in the roof, through which the girls had crept, with many fears and misgivings, when the encroaching water within warned them that it was no longer safe to stay there.

Looking through this he could see that the place was fully inundated.

Chairs and table were floating, and even the ladder which the girls had used was partly washed out of a window.

”Nothing much doing down there for us,” Max informed Bandy-legs, who had crept over to the hole in the roof along with him, in order to satisfy his curiosity.

He had heard Max ask questions of the girls, and was deeply interested in learning what the next step might chance to be. Bandy-legs was still secretly mourning the fact that they had been compelled to let all that wreckage of the bridge get away from them. It had served them so splendidly up to that time, and still thinking of the Crusoe affair, he could not help believing that it had been a big mistake not to have at least made some effort to hold on to what they could.

”And to think,” said Bandy-legs, sadly, ”I've got the best sort of a life preserver at home you ever saw; but what good is it to me now?”

”But you can swim, all right,” remarked Max.

”Oh! I wasn't thinking about myself that time, but what a fine thing it'd be to strap it around one of the girls right now. I say, Max, whatever are we agoin' to do with the three, if the old coop does take a notion to cut loose?”

”Not so loud, Bandy-legs,” warned Max, with a little hiss, and a crooked finger. ”We don't want them to know how tough things really are. If the worst does come we'll have to do what we can to keep them afloat; but I'm still hoping we may get some doors out that would be better than nothing, to hold on to in the water.”

”I heard Bessie tell you that there was a clothesline hanging to a hook inside there, before the water came, and that it might be there yet if not washed away,” Bandy-legs went on to remark.

”Yes, it wasn't very encouraging,” Max informed him; ”but I'm going inside and see if I can find it.”

”You'll want help with the doors, too, of course, Max?”

”And I know where to look for it when you're around, Bandy-legs, because you're one of the most accommodating fellows on earth,” the other told him.

”I'm about as wet as can be, so it doesn't matter a whiff what happens to me from now on,” remarked the other boy; ”but if we have to do more or less swimmin' while we're in there, Max, hadn't we better take our shoes off? I never could do good work with the same on.”

”That's what I'm meaning to do, Bandy-legs; and there's no need of our waiting around any longer, so here goes.”

Saying which Max proceeded to remove his wet shoes and socks, rolling his trouser legs up half way to his knees.