CHAPTER XI.

ADRIFT ON THE FLOOD.

"What can we do, Thad?" cried Bumpus, as a lurch of the boat caused him to bang up against some of the others.

"Hold on, don't smash me against the side of the cabin, you elephant!" roared Davy, who had been unfortunate enough to serve as a buffer for the stout scout.

Thad struck a match, and somehow even the small glow thus afforded seemed to give the boys new cheer.

"Thank goodness the tin lamp hasn't been knocked over and the glass broken!" said Step Hen, as he reached out, and just saved the article in question from slipping off the table.

"Here, let me put this match to the wick," said Thad; "things won't seem quite so bad then as in the pitch dark."

After that they fixed it so the precious tin lamp could not be spilled; and so long as the oil held out they meant to keep it burning.

When the door was opened so that they could look out, it was a dreadful sight the scouts saw. All before them lay heaving water, that had a sickening motion to it, but did not seem to be rushing past as they had noticed it do before.

"Why, the old river's standing still, I do declare!" cried the astonished Bumpus, as he thrust his head out of the open doorway to see.

"It looks that way because we're moving along with it, Bumpus," Giraffe told him; ordinarily the tall scout would most likely have jeered scornfully at the innocent for suspecting such a thing, but now he seemed to feel that he owed Bumpus a debt on account of the trick he had played, which could only be paid by his being unusually kind.

"Can we do anything, Thad?" demanded Step Hen. "Is there a push pole on board so some of us might start the old tub back to the bank again?"

"There is one, but it seems to be broken, and wouldn't be worth a continental cent in all this flood," Thad told him. "Unless we feel desperate enough to jump over and try to swim for it, we'll have to stay aboard, and take our chances."

"Oh! I hope now you won't decide to try that!" said Bumpus, whose failings were well known to his chums, and a lack of the knowledge pertaining to the art of swimming happened to be one of them.

Indeed, when they looked at that terrible water all of the scouts shrank back, and not a single voice was raised in favor of the plan. There might be worse things even than finding themselves adrift on the flood in a houseboat.

"Do you think that thick rope broke under the strain, Thad?" asked Allan presently, as they still stood there, looking out, not liking to close the door lest something terrible happen to the boat, and all of them be caught in the cabin to drown like rats in a trap.

"That's what must have happened, Allan, though when I looked it over I thought it could stand any sort of strain. But it must have been part rotten in some part; and a rope's like a chain, you know, only as strong as its weakest link or strand. But no matter what the cause may have been, all we have to think of is the effect. It's too late to prevent the accident; and we'll hope the worst isn't going to happen to us now."

"What d'ye mean by the worst, Thad?" asked Bumpus, almost piteously.

"This river, you know, is full of rocks," explained the other. "In the summertime when the water's low they stick up everywhere; but in case of a flood most of them are under water, and act like snags to punch holes in boats that may be unlucky enough to be caught afloat. Then again there's always danger of being crowded up on a sliding shelf of rock, when the wind and the sweep of the current might upset us all!"

"Gosh!"

After that last exclamation Bumpus remained silent, but he certainly found plenty of food for thought in what he had heard Thad say. Every new lurch of the boat was apt to give him a fresh quiver of anxiety. He kept his eyes fixed on Thad, just as though he believed that if they were to be saved at all, it must inevitably be through the instrumentality of the patrol leader.

It might readily be assumed that none of those eight scouts would ever forget that wild voyage down the flooded Susquehanna, in the inky darkness of that Spring night. The floating shanty boat kept performing all manner of remarkable gyrations under the influence of wind and waves. Sometimes one end would be upstream, and in a little while the craft would spin around so that the door had to be temporarily closed in order to keep the driving rain from deluging them.

In the midst of this dreadful suspense they suddenly felt that their onward motion had ceased. At the same time they discovered the forward part of the boat to be rising.

"We're ashore!" shouted Giraffe, looking ready to plunge out of the door and take any sort of a ducking rather than stay aboard, to risk death in the flood.

"Hold on!" cried Thad, clutching him just in time to prevent any rashness; "you don't want to leap before you look. There's water on this side where the shore ought to be. I think the boat's only shoved up on a sunken rock! If you jumped now you'd find yourself in the river!"

"Yes, and she's swinging around right now, let me tell you, Giraffe!" added Davy Jones; "look at the other side coming up, would you?"

"Oh! I hope she don't turn turtle, that's all!" bellowed Bumpus; "keep the door open, Thad, and let me have a chance to get out if the worst comes, because I need more time than the rest of you do."

Giraffe was seen to edge closer to the stout scout, as though he had made up his mind to give Bumpus, who knew so little about swimming, all possible assistance should the worst come to pass.

"No danger this time," sang out Thad, "for there she slides off the rock, and our interrupted voyage is on again."

True enough, the shanty boat began to move, rocked violently for a brief period, and then seemed to be floating once more along the rolling current on an even keel, greatly to the relief of Bumpus, who was holding his breath with the dreadful suspense.

"How long do you suppose now we can keep sailing like this?" Step Hen asked.

"If nothing happens to us until morning comes," replied Thad, "we'll find some way to get ashore, when we can see how to work."

"Sure thing!" added Davy. "But I hope now we don't strike any old cataract or falls, where we'd be swept over a dam, and get wrecked. Seems to me I've heard of such things along the Susquehanna."

His words must have brought a new spasm of alarm to the heart of Bumpus, for he clutched Thad's sleeve, as though imploring him to set that fear at rest.

"If there are," the patrol leader told them, "it must be a good deal further upstream than where we are. While the Susquehanna isn't called a navigable river, except down near its mouth, where it empties into the bay, it's an open stream for a long distance. Don't bother thinking about mill-dams and that sort of thing. The worst terror we've got to face is the everlasting snags all around us. If one punched a hole in the lower part of the boat we'd be apt to sink."

"Wish we had life preservers, then," remarked Bumpus; "I thought every boat was compelled to keep such things aboard."

"They are, if they carry a certain number of passengers," Thad told him.

"Yes," added Giraffe, as he reached up and took some small object from a shelf, where it had remained all this while, in spite of the movements of the boat, "and this craft was well provided, too, for you can see that this is an empty bottle, the mate to the one the tramps threw away. They all seem to patronize the same brand around this section, too, because it's as like that other flask as two peas in a pod."

Thad looked at the emptied bottle, but made no remark. Had Giraffe been observing the patrol leader closely, however, instead of keeping his eyes fixed on what he was exhibiting, he might have wondered what the little flash of intelligence passing over Thad's face could mean, and whether the other had conceived a sudden thought of some kind.

They must have entered upon a section of the river where the cross currents became stronger than ever, for the drifting shanty boat's progress became more erratic. Several times the boys found themselves flung in a heap by an unheralded stoppage of the boat, or an unusually wild movement sideways.

"Say, this is getting tougher and tougher the further we go, and I must admit I don't fancy it for a cent!" grumbled Step Hen, after he had picked himself up for the third time and rubbed his knees as though they pained him.

"The worst I ever met up with, suh!" declared Bob White, steadying himself by clutching hold of a hook that was fastened to the wall for some purpose or other.

"Think of me," groaned Bumpus; "when I come down it's like a load of brick!"

"Yes, that's what I say," added Davy; "'specially to the fellow underneath you, Bumpus. Why don't you sit down all the time, and save yourself the trouble of falling so much? You nearly crunched me last time."

"Yes, and it don't hurt him to fall the same way it does me," Giraffe wanted the rest to know, "because he's padded all over like a football player."

Instead of diminishing, the erratic gyrations of the whirling boat seemed to continually increase, if such a thing were possible. Even Thad became worried, for it was impossible to guess what would happen next. Then again that impenetrable blackness with which they were enveloped on all sides must be anything but reassuring to even the bravest heart. If they could only see out, and prepare for each new and surprising shock, it might not be quite so bad.

Minutes dragged along until they seemed almost like hours to the scouts who, imprisoned in that small cabin, found themselves at the mercy and sport of the flood that was pouring down the Susquehanna. Why, sometimes it seemed to Bumpus he must be living in the time of old Noah, and that this was the ark of refuge, with the forty days of solid rain beating down upon it. Yes, and he could almost fancy that he had some of the animals that were taken in, two by two, around him, judging from the queer attitudes which Davy Jones was striking, for he was on all fours about half the time.

Thad had figured out what they must do in case of a wreck. This was to stand by the boat as long as she remained afloat, and only strike out for the shore in case of a complete collapse. He knew the terrible risk all of them would run if they attempted to swim that swollen stream, without daylight to give them cheer, or show them their bearings; and it was the last thing he wanted to try.

Perhaps nearly half an hour may have elapsed since the boat had struck that sloping shelf of hidden rock, when once again the same experience came upon them.

This time they seemed to have been driven with such speed that the boat slid far up on the rock, and immediately careened toward the larboard.

"We're going over this time, sure!" shouted Giraffe; and there was not one of his companions but whose mind was filled with the same fear; for it seemed as though nothing could prevent such a catastrophe from happening.