“I believe so,” replied Hugh, and then, turning to Wash, he continued: “Did you say it was around that corner, and to the left toward the river?”
Wash looked at the woman, who had been listening to this talk while wringing her hands in anguish. She eagerly nodded her head and exclaimed:
“Yes, yes, it is that way, Mister. She’s got three childer, too, and her man he is working on the railroad plenty miles away. Please get them safe; and do not forget to bring the bed clothes, too. The childer freeze without some covers.”
She waved both hands distractedly, as though beseeching them to hurry. Indeed, with that terrible current growing more and more violent with the passage of time, as the flood kept on rising, there was indeed much need for haste. And some of the flimsily built dwellings of the poorer classes in the manufacturing town of Lawrence had already washed away, the boys had heard, being carried off piecemeal by the greedy waters.
Hugh did not linger. All they had to do was to back away until the boat could be turned, and then manage to round the designated corner. They would very likely discover the house where the woman and the three “childer” lived, and who had been trapped by the flood.
Once they cleared the sheltering wall the full force of the speeding current struck them, so that Hugh found it absolutely necessary to put the little three-horse engine to its best “licks” in order to make headway.
“I see the house!” cried Billy, on the lookout. “There are youngsters in the upper windows waving bits of white rag to us. We’ve got to hurry, boys, or we’ll be too late after all. That old shanty is ready to go to pieces right now!”
CHAPTER VII.
THE HELPING HAND.
All of the scouts could see that what Billy said was the actual truth. Somehow the water made through this street with considerable more force than the one they had just come from, where Wash and his set were as busy as beavers.
“Look at it sway, would you?” exclaimed Monkey Stallings, a note of genuine anxiety showing in his quivering voice.