"Oh, please hurry!" burst out the girl eagerly. "Please hurry, or it will be too late! I don't think Chester can swim."
"All right, we'll tell the others where we are going and then we'll do what we can," answered Dick. "But if that flood is very strong we may have——"
Dick was unable to finish his speech. Just then there came more lightning followed by a deafening crash of thunder. Then the very heavens seemed to open, to let down a torrent of water which seemed to fairly engulf them.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" came from the women and the girls. "Oh! what a terrible storm!"
"It is a cloudburst! That's what it is!" gasped Sam.
"You're right!" ejaculated Tom. "Look! See how the water in the river is rising! It's a cloudburst and a flood!"
Tom was right—there had been a cloudburst, but fortunately not directly over the heads of our friends, otherwise they might have perished in the terrible downpour which immediately followed. The catastrophe had occurred at a point about a mile farther up the river, and now the waters from this flood were coming down with great swiftness and rising higher and higher every instant.
"We've got to get out of here," was Sam's comment. Already they were standing in water up to their ankles. "We've got to find higher ground."
"Oh, Sam! Sam! please don't let my brother drown!" pleaded Ada Waltham, catching him by the arm.
"We'll do what we can to save him, Ada, but we've got to save ourselves first," he answered.