"Whew! That was touch and go!" murmured Bud, as he leaned back, half exhausted, against the rocky wall at the rear of the ledge.
"I should say so!" gasped d.i.c.k. "It all happened so suddenly that I don"t know yet what it was all about."
"The stream suddenly started flowing again," spoke Bud. "That"s all there was to it. Must have been dammed up some place, and suddenly released. It"s still rising, too," he added, as he leaned forward and held the lantern down over the ledge where he and his cousins had taken refuge.
"Rising?" sharply inquired Nort, and there was a tone of anxiety in his voice.
"Yes," remarked Bud, as he swung the lantern to and fro. "We didn"t get up here any too soon, fellows! Look, the water would be up to our waists down there now, in the most shallow place, and it"s got speed like one of Christy Mathewson"s curves!"
His cousins could see that he had not exaggerated the matter. The waters were rising. Inch by inch, and foot by foot, the flood was approaching the crest. Where the boy ranchers had sat in the almost dry bed of the stream, to eat their lunch, there was now a mad race of swirling waters. Where they had stood, before climbing up to the ledge of safety, there was now three feet depth of water. And, as Bud had said, it was flowing along so swiftly, like the stream which turns a mill-wheel, that the boys could hardly have been able to keep their feet had they been down in the current, or even on the weakest edge of it.
But, as they were, they were safe for the time being. How long that would be the case none could tell. They could see, in the gleam of the one lantern saved in the mad rush, that the stream was coursing along as it had never coursed before.
"There must be a powerful lot of water coming out of the reservoir pipe," Nort remarked.
"Biggest ever, with all this water behind forcing it out," agreed Bud.
"I hope the pipe holds."
"It isn"t as if the pipe were the only outlet," said d.i.c.k. "You know the water can flow out of the tunnel above, and on either side of the conduit."
"Yes," agreed Bud, "and dad had it put in that way on purpose, so if ever a big flood did come, the tunnel could relieve itself without ripping away the pipe and reservoir. There"s a sort of spillway at one side of the reservoir, you know."
The boys from the east had noticed this. Up to now no water had run off through this auxiliary channel, but it was there for emergencies such as now had occurred. And the water could find a vent and outlet down the middle of Flume Valley, as, indeed, the surplus from the reservoir itself did, when there was any.
"Well, it sure is queer, and we had a mighty narrow escape," remarked Nort, as Bud leaned back again with the lantern. "But the fellows back at the camp will be scared."
"I reckon they will," admitted Bud. "They"ll see the water spouting out, in a greater volume than ever before, and they"ll imagine all sorts of things have happened to us."
"Well, nothing has happened yet--except we"ve lost two perfectly good lanterns, and what grub we didn"t eat," a.s.serted Nort.
"But something else may happen," said Bud in a low voice, as, once more, he leaned forward, and again held the lantern over the edge of the rocky ledge.
"What?" d.i.c.k wanted to know.
"Look," was what Bud replied. And his cousins, glancing down, saw that the waters were rising, rising, rising!
When would they stop?
CHAPTER XIII
WHERE DID IT GO?
Pressing back toward the rocky ledge, against which they leaned, gazing with fearsome eyes at the rising waters, on which the lantern-light shone fitfully, and almost holding their breaths at times, so great was the strain, the boy ranchers waited--for what they scarcely knew. And yet they did, in a measure.
For they waited to see if the waters would stop rising, a happening, as they well knew, which, alone, could save their lives.
As one of them had remarked, they might have to swim for it. But, looking at the foaming current, dashing along over jagged rocks on which the boys had more than once stumbled, they knew what a risk that effort to escape would bring.
And should the water fill the whole tunnel they would have no earthly chance!
For only a fish can exist in a hose or pipe completely filled with water, and that is what the tunnel would become if the water rose to the roof--merely a great, underground rocky pipe for the conveying of the liquid from Pocut River.
So you can easily imagine with what anxiety Bud, Nort and d.i.c.k watched the rising water. Every now and again one of them would lean over the ledge, swinging the lantern to and fro, so its gleams would be reflected in the hurrying, foaming stream, and indicate how fast it was rising.
At first the rate of rise had been rapid. But as the boys, again and again, made observations in the semi-gloom Bud, at length, uttered a joyful cry.
"Look!" he shouted, pointing with trembling finger at the foamy flood close, now, to the top of the ledge. "Look!"
"What--a big fish?" asked d.i.c.k.
"Fish nothing!" retorted his cousin. "But the water is going down!
Look, it isn"t as high as it was. I can see a wet mark where it came up to, and it"s two inches below that now! The flood is going down!"
"Are you sure?" asked Nort, eagerly.
"Look for yourselves!" invited Bud, handing over the lantern.
Nort"s observation was confirmatory of his cousin"s.
"She _is_ going down!" remarked Nort. "And just in time, too!"
How truly he spoke was evidenced by that fact that another inch of rise would have sent the flood over the ledge on which the boys rested!
So narrow had been their escape!
"If she only doesn"t begin to rise again, after she starts going down--as you say she is--we"ll be all right," said d.i.c.k. "But if she comes up----"
He did not finish what he started to say, but his companions knew what he meant, and they looked each other in the face with grave apprehensions.
"The question is now," went on Bud, as he again took an observation and noted that the flood was still on the descent, "how long we shall have to stay here."
"If it"s too long we"ll be wanting some of that grub which was washed away," a.s.serted Diet. "In fact I dropped a sandwich half eaten."
"Same here," remarked his brother. "But let"s hope that it will go down as suddenly as it came up."
That was all they could do--hope; but it bore fruits, for in about an hour, as they ascertained by glances at their watches, the flood was almost down to the normal channel of the underground stream.
"And if it will only stay there we can venture to keep on to the other end of the tunnel," spoke Bud.
"Will you do that?" d.i.c.k wanted to know.
"Why not?" asked Bud. "We want to see what happened, and where this water goes to when it disappears so suddenly; don"t we?"
"Yes," agreed d.i.c.k. "But I thought, after our escape, that we had better head back for camp."
"It"s about six of one and half a dozen of the other," a.s.serted Bud.