“Most of them seem to be heading down toward the river,” remarked Billy. “So I propose that we walk that way, too.”
He heard no opposition from his chum, because Hugh had just been about to suggest the same thing himself. Puddles of water lay in their path almost everywhere; but these received only scant attention. Beyond lay the river, and that riveted their gaze immediately.
“Holy smoke! look at it swirling along, and as yellow as mud!” exclaimed Billy, who was a bit addicted to slang, though most of his outcroppings along that line were of a harmless character.
“It certainly is on the boom,” admitted Hugh. “It’s hard to believe that raging torrent can be the same little river that in summertime lazily meanders through this section of country. It’s carrying all sorts of flotsam and jetsam along now. See, there goes a chicken-coop; and out further is the trunk of a tree. Everything movable has to take a place in the procession when Mr. Flood comes to town.”
“Oh! see the barn coming, will you?” exclaimed Billy. “It can never go under the bridge, Hugh. When it strikes, the old thing will rattle all to pieces, I guess. Now watch what happens. Say, I think those people on the bridge are taking mighty big chances to stay there so as to see all that goes on. What if—there, now it’s going to smash up against the bridge!... Oh!”
Even as Billy was saying this in a strained voice, meanwhile clutching the arm of his companion’s raincoat in his excitement, they heard a crash; and then the barn, already badly racked by its tribulations while floating on the flood, went to pieces.
Some of the boys who were eagerly observing these happenings gave vent to a cheer, as though they thought it a treat when the unlucky barn ceased to exist, and the fragments floated off on the whirling waters.
“Whee! it looked to me like it might be nip and tuck between the barn and that old bridge,” Billy remarked, as he drew a long breath. “Why, Hugh, I could see it quivering to beat the band; and honestly one time I even thought it was going to drop over into the flood!”
“I saw the same thing, Billy,” asserted the other boy quickly.
“What made it act that way, Hugh? Looks to me as if it ought to be a pretty strong sort of a bridge, though if the river rises much more, the water’ll come level with the flooring, and then it’s going to be all up with that structure.”