"Anyway, you did your part," he muttered. And then, "If you only could swim."
It was evident that the recent rains had swollen the stream which ordinarily flowed in the narrow bed between slanting shores so that the rushing water filled the whole space between the declivities and was even flooding the two ends of road which had been connected by a bridge. An old ramshackle house, which Tom thought might once have been a boathouse, stood near, the water lapping its underpinning. Close by it was a buoyed mooring float six or eight feet square, bobbing in the rushing water. One of the four air-tight barrels which supported it had caught in the mud and kept the buoyant, raft-like platform from being carried downstream in the rush of water.
Holding his flashlight to his watch Tom saw that it was nearly fifteen minutes past four and he believed that about forty miles of road lay ahead of him. Slowly, silently, the first pale tint of gray in the sky behind him took on a more substantial hue, revealing the gaunt, black outlines of trees and painting the sun-dried, ragged shingles on the little house a dull silvery color.
"Anyway, you stood by me and it ain't your fault," Tom muttered disconsolately. He turned the handle bar this way and that, so that Uncle Sam's one big eye peered uncannily across the flooded stream and flickered up the road upon the other side, which wound up the hillside and away into the country beyond. The big, peering eye seemed to look longingly upon that road.
Then Tom was seized with a kind of frantic rebellion against fate—the same futile passion which causes a convict to wrench madly at the bars of his cell. The glimpse of that illuminated stretch of road across the flooded stream drove him to distraction. Baffled, powerless, his wonted stolidness left him, and he cast his eyes here and there with a sort of challenge born of despair and desperation.
Slowly, gently, the hazy dawn stole over the sky and the roof of dried and ragged shingles seemed as if it were covered with gray dust. Presently the light would flicker upon those black, mad waters and laugh at Tom from the other side.
And meanwhile the minutes passed.
He believed that he could swim the torrent and make a landing even though the rush of water carried him somewhat downstream. But what about Uncle Sam? He turned off the searchlight and still Uncle Sam was clearly visible now, standing, waiting. He could count the spokes in the wheels.
The spokes in the wheels—the spokes. With a sudden inspiration born of despair, Tom looked at that low, shingled roof. He could see it fairly well now. The gray dawn had almost caught up with him.
And meanwhile the minutes passed!