"At the shack, sir. The water is ankle deep."
"Don't stay there another moment. It is not safe. At any instant the whole hut may be carried away. Gather your traps together and call Wharton or Stevens—or both of them—to come and help you take them up to Aldercliffe. I'll attend to notifying the mills. You've done us a good turn, my boy."
During the next hour Ted himself was too busy to appreciate the hectic rush of events that he had set moving, or realize the feverish energy with which the Fernalds and their employees worked to avert a tragedy which, but for his warning, might have been a very terrible one. The mills were reached by wire and the sluices at the sides of the central dam immediately lifted to make way for the torrent of snow, ice, wreckage, and water. In what a fierce and maddened chaos it surged over the falls and dashed into the chasm beneath! All day the mighty current boiled and seethed, overflowing the outlying fields with its yellow flood. Nevertheless, the great brick factories that bordered the stream stood firm and so did the residences at Aldercliffe and Pine Lea, both of which were fortunately situated on high ground.
Ted had not made his escape from his little camp a moment too soon, for while he stood looking out on the freshet from one of the attic windows at Pine Lea, he shivered to behold his little hut bob past him amid the rushing waters and drift into an eddy on the opposite shore along with a mass of uprooted pines.
A sob burst from him.
"It's gone, Mr. Hazen—our little house!" he murmured brokenly to the young tutor who was standing beside him. "We never shall see it again."
"You mustn't take it so to heart, Ted," the teacher answered, laying his hand sympathetically on the lad's shoulder. "Suppose you had been in it and borne away to almost certain death. That would have been a calamity indeed. What is an empty boathouse when we consider how many people are to suffer actual financial loss and perhaps forfeit everything they have, as a result of this tragedy. The villagers who live along the river will lose practically everything they own—boats, poultry, barns; and many of them both houses and furniture. We all loved the shack; but it is not as if its destruction left you with no other roof above your head. You can stay at Aldercliffe, Pine Lea, or join your family at Freeman's Falls. Three shelters are open to you. But these poor souls in the town——"
"I had not thought about the villagers," blushed Ted.
"The Fernalds have been in the settlement since dawn and along with every man they could summon have been working to save life and property. If I had not had to stay here with Laurie, I should have gone to help, too."
Ted hung his head.