His curiosity continued to grow the closer they came to the abandoned farm buildings, until finally Billy could hold in no longer.
“Hugh,” he said, “you’re meaning to do something, I take it, at that place, because you’ve headed straight this way from the time we left shore; but look as hard as I can I’ve failed to see a sign of life about the farmhouse.”
Hugh smiled, because he had been anticipating some such remark, having noticed the uneasy movements and puzzled looks of his chum.
“That’s where one of the men ashore lives,” he started to explain. “He was speaking to me about it, and begged me as a favor to come out here right away on an errand of mercy. They were away from home when the flood came, you see, and couldn’t get back here to do anything.”
“What does he want you to do for him? Was there any one left at home? Does he expect us to salvage some of his best furniture and clothes for him, Hugh?”
“Neither one nor the other, Billy. The fact of the matter is he wants me to do something to save a pair of valuable work horses that are shut up in the lower part of his stable, where they may drown there in their stalls if the flood rises a couple of feet more!”
CHAPTER IX.
GATHERING THEM IN.
Now, as Billy loved horses, he was ready to applaud the plan suggested by Hugh.
“It ought to be easy to open the door of the stable,” he observed. “Like as not the horses have broken loose from their mangers long before now, with the place filling with water and giving them a scare. But if they haven’t, why I’ll guarantee to get in there some way and cut them free.”
“That must be the stable yonder,” called out Stallings, who had heard what was passing between his friends.