No one knew what had happened; but, hearing the crash forward, Captain Royce made his way there as fast as he could, and tried to learn the extent of the damage. The ark was rocking heavily, and immediately her young captain perceived that they had broken adrift and were floating down-stream. Shouting to Hoyt and Lincoln, he bade them man the after-sweep with all speed and try to keep clear of the bank; for the craft was going broadside to the current.
It was not till the men tried to work the sweep that they discovered a long tree trunk lying afoul of them forward—across the broken roof. Apparently, it had fallen on them from up the bluff; yet they did not appear to be leaking.
Distressed cries of “Hallo, the ark!” were now heard astern; and the captain at once began calling the crew by name, to see if any one were missing. All answered except Moses and Lewis. It was then remembered that Lewis had been on lookout duty upon the roof.
“That’s Mose back there in the water!” Wistar Royce exclaimed. “I know by the voice.”
“Get out the skiff!” exclaimed the captain, and all haste was made to do so; for, by Captain Royce’s orders, the skiff was now hauled aboard every night.
Wistar, meanwhile, was answering Moses’ shouts, calling out to him to keep afloat, if he could, till they got to him. Claiborne and Lincoln immediately put out, rowing back against the stream, and found the boy floating with both arms clasped about the plank. He was wet and cold, but otherwise uninjured.
“But where is Lewis? Do you know anything about Lewis?” were Marion Royce’s first questions when they had Moses aboard.
Moses could tell them little, however, except that Lewis had been on the roof, and that he thought he had heard him shout, “You red scamp, you!” when the landslide occurred, for such they now concluded had been the cause of the accident. The side of the bluff, and with it a number of trees, had slid down into the river.
Such subsidences of the banks are of common occurrence in time of flood on the Mississippi, owing to the undermining action of the powerful current. Tracts, many acres in extent, with the forest growing thereon, are suddenly submerged.
They succeeded in cutting away the tree that fouled them, and then they moored the ark against a willow bank three or four miles below. Lewis’ disappearance had filled the young captain with the gravest solicitude. It was feared that the tree had struck and crushed him. It was now noticed, too, that Tige was not aboard the ark; and Moses remembered about hoisting the dog to the roof a few moments before the landslide occurred.