Fortunately there was no catastrophe, and in good time the scouts had the chance to rescue them. It turned out that they were an old couple, badly frightened when one of their oars broke, and they found that the leaking boat threatened to go down with them, far from land.
They had quite a quantity of stuff aboard, and seemed to set such store by it that the boys could not refuse to save it. Already the boat was filling with water since no further effort was being made to keep it down; and before long it would be almost level with the gunwale, when it might drift about in that condition.
Hugh decided that it would be a waste of time to try and land the fugitives of the flood as fast as they were rescued. They could be kept aboard until their number had increased to a respectable figure, when the run to the nearest shore would be undertaken.
Hardly had they again started on than Tip gave notice that he had sighted another signal of distress.
“I wish I had marine glasses along,” he said, after directing Hugh how to point the boat’s nose, “then I could tell what that means. Seems to me somebody must be swimming, and waving a handkerchief or something.”
“No, I think you’re wrong there, Tip,” Billy observed, after he had stared intently at the object ahead, while Monkey Stallings continued to wave a piece of white cloth he had picked up, so as to assure the imperiled ones their signal had been seen. “They don’t seem to be moving at all. P’raps they’re sitting on some sort of raft, low down near the surface of the water.”
As the launch was making pretty good time, of course the scouts rapidly approached closer to the object of their curiosity. Many were the guesses they continued to make in trying to solve the mystery.
Finally it was determined that those they were drawing near must be standing on some rock or mound, for there was no sign of a farmhouse near them.
This proved to be the actual case. There were seven in the party, a man, his wife, and five children. They had started to wade from their farmhouse to the hills, thinking it could be done; but the water kept on getting deeper and deeper until they became frightened and dared proceed no further.
When they turned to go back, the sight of all that wide sweep of agitated water appalled them; so they had clung to the little rise of ground they had accidentally struck, hoping and praying that some boat or raft would come to their assistance.