"Yes, I did too, but somewhere away up on the wooded hills there. Like as not this flood has chased plenty of dogs away from their homes, and they may be running in packs, hunting something to eat."
"Huh! hope we don't happen to run foul of a pack then," Bandy-legs insinuated; "and for fear that we do I'm going to be ready."
With that he picked up a rather stout cudgel which he swung a few times as if to accustom his arm to the motion.
Apparently Max did not think there was any particular reason for alarm. He must have figured that the dogs they had heard were hunting game a mile or two back in the woods, and that there was little chance of their coming closer to the river.
"I can see the house ahead there," he announced five minutes later.
"Yes, and it's surrounded by water too," added his chum; "no wonder the folks got out and left; they'd be silly to stay till it was too late. Why, that cabin might be carried off any time like the other house was, even if it ain't so far out I reckon we must have drifted half a mile further down when we kept rowing so hard; because that was a stiff current, believe me."
"Fully half a mile, Bandy-legs," Max assured him, and then fell to craning his neck in the endeavor to locate the woman they believed they had seen among the trees at a point where the water ended.
Two minutes later and Max uttered a satisfied exclamation.
"I see the woman," he told his companion, "and just as we thought she's an old person, bent over considerably. Perhaps she couldn't go far away after she had to quit her house; perhaps she's nearly as helpless as the crippled French child. If it wasn't for Mabel being unable to walk we might be trying to find shelter back in the country right now. Come on and we'll interview her. She may be glad to go with us, and spend the night in camp; it would be good for her and the girls would like it too."
The old woman had seen their approach. She looked anything but happy, and Max really began to believe that the poor soul stood in danger of losing all she owned in the wide world, if her little cabin went out with the flood.