“Come, you and Pat, we will return home. We all of us need sleep, and surely you in particular, my son, after the excitement of the perils that hung over your head. Perhaps a kindly Providence, that has all along watched over our fortunes, may see fit to ward off this new and terrible danger. But, if it is to come, we could not help matters by remaining awake. Let us then be securing some rest, so as to be ready to work with a will, in case the worst comes.”
Half an hour later perfect quiet seemed to surround the cabin of the settlers from Virginia; but, nevertheless, Pat slept, as he himself expressed it, “wid wan eye open.” Besides, he kept his long rifle close to his hand; and Sandy felt positive that, in case there came any midnight alarm, O’Mara would be out of the cabin like a flash, and woe to the skulking figure on which his eye rested.
Tired out after the labors of the day, and easily able to throw the burden off his young mind, Bob Armstrong was not long in going to sleep, once he had dropped down on his bed, covered with some of the furs taken by himself and Sandy.
They had been warned not to undress, lest there might be need of sudden action with the coming of the flood. But such a little thing as that did not bother either of the Armstrong boys, who were used to roughing it whenever they went into the woods.
Bob never knew how long he slept; but it must have been for several hours, because the fire on the hearth had died down when he opened his eyes again, and it had been looked after at the time he lay down.
But the condition of the fire gave the boy little or no concern at the time he awoke; for, hardly had he opened his eyes, than he became conscious of the thrilling fact that it had not been a dream after all but the alarm bell was wildly pealing out its brazen notes; and outside he could hear men’s hoarse voices shouting:
“Up, every one of you! The flood is coming swiftly, and already the water has commenced to rise at a fearful rate. Awake! Be up and doing, if you would save your possessions! The flood! the flood!”