Not until the approach of day did the storm break away.
As the sun arose the rain ceased to fall, the wind went down, the clouds became broken, and in a few minutes the blue vault was sparkling clear and bright.
Our friends breathed an air of relief, but their heads grew dizzy when they gazed on the roaring flood beneath them.
Out upon either side the water had overflown the river banks and spread out a hundred yards into the bottom. Its turbulent current was black with floating logs and debris.
The tree in which our friends sat quivered under the agitated motion of the water, and ever and anon a floating log would strike it with a force that threatened to bear it down.
Wild birds wheeled and circled over their heads with a startled shriek, as though trying to add new terror to their already trying situation.
Old Tumult ran his eyes along the eastern shore in hopes of seeing some one that he could call to their assistance. But only wave after wave of the great prairie could be seen, rolling away in the distant haze of that autumnal morning. He turned his head and gazed toward the wooded shore. He saw a bird soar upward with a startled shriek from that point in the woods where the water had overflown the bank.
A novice in woodcraft would have paid no particular attention to so trivial a fact, but Old Tumult saw at once, that the bird had been frightened by something unusual.
In this the old scout was right. The next moment a large canoe, containing half a dozen Arapaho Indians, glided swiftly out from among the timber on the inundated shore, and bore down directly toward our friends.
Among the savages, our friends recognized the presence of Dick Sherwood, who, as the canoe glided from among the timber into the main channel of the river, arose to his feet and shouted: