CHAPTER II.

STRANDED FAR AWAY FROM HOME.

“What do you think about it, Hugh?” asked Billy, after they had allowed themselves to be pushed along by the surging, anxious crowd, and found themselves once more outside the postoffice building, headed toward the railroad station.

“Looks like a bad job, I’m afraid,” replied the patrol leader. “You see, the river runs past Lawrence, and already its bank is full with the flood, which is rising right along. I heard one man say it was up to the highest notch on record. If rain keeps coming, there is no telling what terrible calamity might hit all this section of country.”

Billy drew a long breath.

“I want to take back something I said without thinking twice, Hugh. I guess, after all, a flood isn’t anything to laugh at. The look on the faces of those men and women at the postoffice gave me a bad feeling.”

“Well,” said the scout leader seriously, “they are afraid that a flood will spell ruin for some of them. Houses may be carried away, and barns broken into little bits. All sorts of valuable farm animals are apt to be drowned. And sometimes even people in the bargain find themselves marooned in their homes without food, and expecting to be afloat on the flood at any minute. No, there’s a heap more of tragedy about a flood than comedy, let me tell you, Billy.”

“I’m wondering about our train, Hugh.”

“You mean whether it can get here or not? Between you and me, Billy, I’d say the chances were all against us seeing home to-night!”

“Whew!”

After that exclamation “Billy the Wolf,” as he was often called by his friends, relapsed into silence for a brief space of time; but it was hard for him to keep from expressing the thoughts that surged through his brain, so that presently he started once more to say something.

“Hugh, I’ve noticed a few boys in scout suits around here since we came. One fellow even gave me the high sign, as though he wanted to be friendly. I wonder now if they have an organization, and whether we couldn’t get in touch with the crowd in case we find ourselves marooned here in the flood time.”

“I went to the trouble to look that up before we left home, and I learned that they used to have a good strong unit here in Lawrence two years back,” Hugh informed him. “But it seems that it’s taken to losing its grip on the boys. They lost the scout master who had done most of the work of building the troop up, and ever since things have grown from bad to worse. Just now they seldom meet, and seem to lack all the enthusiasm that is necessary to success in any organization.”

“Well, there are boys who still wear the khaki,” declared Billy, “and if it happens that we do find ourselves kept here, we might try and get them together, so as to organize a relief corps of scouts.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Billy, and I’ll remember it,” declared Hugh. “Here we are at the station, and the next thing to do is to get a feed.”

“I’m jolly well ready for a layout, let me tell you,” chuckled Billy. “Breakfast at seven, and it’s now nearly one. Think of that for a record, and never a bite in between—well, I did have a couple of apples on the train, three bananas, and that candy; but those sorts of things never count with me. Now for a raid on that lunch counter. When I give my order watch the waiter run to the door to see how many more scouts there are coming.”

Of course, Billy was only joking, for the man at the lunch counter did nothing of the kind. They were able to make a very respectable meal, sitting there on the stools provided for hasty travelers who would possibly bolt a cup of hot coffee, snatch up a sandwich, and hurry out, for fear their train might leave them in the lurch, only to learn they had another fifteen minutes’ wait.

When finally even Billy declared he could not eat anything more, they paid their bill and sauntered out of the lunchroom.

“Just a quarter of two,” announced Hugh.

“And our train isn’t due until thirty-seven after,” Billy observed.

“Perhaps we might get some information from the agent about what chance there is of its getting through,” suggested the patrol leader.

“I kind of dread to put it to the test,” Billy admitted with a shrug of the shoulders. “But I guess the sooner we know the worst the better. Come along, and let’s interview the ticket man.”

As customary in towns and small cities, the telegraph operator was also the ticket agent; although there were express and station representatives. He seemed to be busily employed taking and receiving messages, and paid not the slightest attention to the two scouts as they came to the window of his booth.

As both Hugh and Billy had studied telegraphy, and were, in fact, pretty clever operators, they soon began to try and read the message as it came clicking over the wires.

The very first words they deciphered gave them a severe shock, and made them doubly eager to catch still more, for they were “bad washouts,” “all trains withdrawn until further orders!”

It was a troubled face that Billy turned toward his chum. The agent had left the telegraph instrument, and was hurrying outside, without appearing to notice them. He acted like a man who had a heavy weight on his mind.

“Did you get that part of the message, Billy?” asked Hugh gravely.

“We’re going to be shut up here in Lawrence, seems like, and marooned.” answered the other. “Gosh! It does take the cake what queer things happen to you and me, Hugh. Of all the times we might have taken to come over here, we hit on the one great day Lawrence has ever known. Looks like we’re in the soup.”

“As long as we manage to keep from being in the flood we shouldn’t complain, I take it,” the patrol leader suggested.

“Where’s he’s gone to, do you reckon, Hugh?”

“The agent?” queried the second lad. “Outside, to write some sort of notice on the bulletin board where they announce whether trains are on time or not.”

“Let’s go and see,” suggested Billy.

They found that Hugh had hit the right nail on the head when he hazarded that opinion, for the agent was just finishing some sort of notice, using a piece of chalk to write it. Several other people came hurrying over to learn what it might be, so that the nucleus of a crowd quickly gathered there.

Just as the boys expected, after having picked up the shreds of information from the sounder inside the ticket office, it was an announcement that was destined to add considerable gloom to the already sinking hearts of those who lived in and around Lawrence, the isolated little flood city.

“Owing to serious washouts above and below Lawrence, all train service has had to be abandoned until further notice!”

“That settles it,” said Billy, rubbing his chin with thumb and forefinger in a way he had when pondering over anything. “We’re in it up to our necks.”

“Oh! I hope not—yet,” Hugh told him. “You’re only going to have that wish you made so recklessly, gratified. After this I’d advise you to think twice before you say things like that, Billy. But here we are, and the only thing that worries me is that the folks at home will be distressed.”

“We might get a message through still, if the wires haven’t all been carried down with the embankment. Let’s make the try, Hugh.”

As the suggestion also appealed to the patrol leader, they once more entered the station. Fortunately the agent had not taken it upon himself to shut up shop and go home simply because there would be no more trains along in either direction that day. As long as the wires were working, he would have to stick to his post.

“We are from Oakvale, and would like to get a message through if it could be done,” Hugh informed him.

“Wires pretty busy with public business,” the agent said. “If you write it out, I’ll see what I can do for you. I expect any old time to find that my last connection has broken down; and after that we’ll get no news, unless they send it to us by pigeon post or via aëroplane, as all country roads are flooded.”

Accordingly Hugh wrote a brief message, telling how they were marooned in the flooded district, and asking that Billy’s folks be informed, so that they would not be worried over the non-return of the boys.

“I think I might get that through right now, as there seems to be a little lull in official business,” the accommodating agent told them, as though he liked their faces, and rather sympathized with their predicament of being caught in such a trap so far away from home.

It turned out that fortune was kind to them, for they presently heard him sending Hugh’s message. At its conclusion, both lads heaved sighs of satisfaction. They could endure whatever might be in store for them with more grit and a determination not to be dismayed now that they knew the dear ones at home would understand the reason of their not turning up.

After paying for the message and thanking the accommodating agent warmly, Hugh and Billy hastened outside. They realized they were due for new and decidedly interesting experiences; and there was a sort of half-suppressed excitement in the atmosphere of the place that was beginning to affect them.

People were getting more aroused every minute. The report that the trains to the city had all been stopped by serious washouts was being circulated in every direction. The boys could see that it added one more straw to the load that was being placed upon the backs of these Lawrence people.

“Most of them seem to be heading down toward the river,” remarked Billy. “So I propose that we walk that way, too.”

He heard no opposition from his chum, because Hugh had just been about to suggest the same thing himself. Puddles of water lay in their path almost everywhere; but these received only scant attention. Beyond lay the river, and that riveted their gaze immediately.

“Holy smoke! look at it swirling along, and as yellow as mud!” exclaimed Billy, who was a bit addicted to slang, though most of his outcroppings along that line were of a harmless character.

“It certainly is on the boom,” admitted Hugh. “It’s hard to believe that raging torrent can be the same little river that in summertime lazily meanders through this section of country. It’s carrying all sorts of flotsam and jetsam along now. See, there goes a chicken-coop; and out further is the trunk of a tree. Everything movable has to take a place in the procession when Mr. Flood comes to town.”

“Oh! see the barn coming, will you?” exclaimed Billy. “It can never go under the bridge, Hugh. When it strikes, the old thing will rattle all to pieces, I guess. Now watch what happens. Say, I think those people on the bridge are taking mighty big chances to stay there so as to see all that goes on. What if—there, now it’s going to smash up against the bridge!... Oh!”

Even as Billy was saying this in a strained voice, meanwhile clutching the arm of his companion’s raincoat in his excitement, they heard a crash; and then the barn, already badly racked by its tribulations while floating on the flood, went to pieces.

Some of the boys who were eagerly observing these happenings gave vent to a cheer, as though they thought it a treat when the unlucky barn ceased to exist, and the fragments floated off on the whirling waters.

“Whee! it looked to me like it might be nip and tuck between the barn and that old bridge,” Billy remarked, as he drew a long breath. “Why, Hugh, I could see it quivering to beat the band; and honestly one time I even thought it was going to drop over into the flood!”

“I saw the same thing, Billy,” asserted the other boy quickly.

“What made it act that way, Hugh? Looks to me as if it ought to be a pretty strong sort of a bridge, though if the river rises much more, the water’ll come level with the flooring, and then it’s going to be all up with that structure.”

“I’m afraid the water has already weakened the piers, and if that’s the case, it is bound to affect the span,” Hugh explained. “Whatever can the police of this place be thinking of, allowing foolish people to gather on a shaky bridge like that? It might topple over at any minute, and there would be a whole lot of drownings.”

“Hugh, if this was happening over at our town, I warrant you the scouts would have something to say before now about that same thing. Chances are you’d have a bunch of them at work keeping every living soul off the bridge, and guarding the approaches, so if it did go down, no one would be lost. It gives me a cold shiver just to look at all those sillies out there. Not only boys, but girls, and men as well. Why, Hugh, I can see several little tots there that ought to be tied to their mothers’ apron strings, instead of being let roam around.”

The patrol leader seemed to be just as deeply affected as Billy.

“We are scouts, we must remember, Billy; and it’s our duty to save life every time the chance comes to us,” he said, very soberly. “We’re strangers here in Lawrence, but right now I can see a number of fellows wearing khaki. Suppose we take a notion to round them up and tell them it’s their solemn duty to get busy?”

“Hugh, count on me to back you up in anything. By hook or crook, we ought to clear that shaky bridge before some big tree comes floating along to knock it so hard that it’ll go down.”

Once they had made up their minds to attempt an enterprise, the two chums never “let the grass grow under their feet” until they had done everything in their power toward accomplishing the object they had in view. And when that consisted of trying to save human life, Hugh Hardin was ready to exert himself to the utmost, regardless of his personal sacrifices.

Accordingly he and Billy started to find a couple of the wearers of the khaki suits who would be likely to listen to their bold proposition.