There had been a cloudburst in the mountains above, whence came such trickle as fed the arroyo in the dry season. Twice before had this thing happened, and the little eating house stood upon stilts of cottonwood logs to be above the flood line, while the lodging house was on higher ground.
The watching women saw the flood reach the railway track, beat upon its embankment with upraised, clinched hands, tear at it with outspread fingers in an access of fury, wrench up the rails yet bolted to the ties, and fling them forward on its crest as it plunged on. The two little houses, standing isolated from the town and nearer to the railroad tracks than any other, were now in an open waste of water, the current sweeping swiftly between them, an eddy lapping in their back yards.
As Huldah saw Manuelita’s frightened face at a window of the Wagon Tire House, she made a trumpet of her plump hands and shouted: “Don’t you be scared, Manuelita—hear? Keep up the fire, and make a b’iler of coffee. I’ll be over soon’s I can git thar!”
Billy Gaines’ wife looked down at the water with relief. “He can’t come across that,” she murmured.
“No, he can’t,” agreed Aunt Huldah. “An’ you come an’ lay down on my bed. Slip off your shoes, an’ loosen your clothes, but don’t undress. This house is safe, I reckon; but no knowin’ what might happen.”
All that night Huldah Sarvice worked, with the strength of a man and the knowledge of a seasoned frontiers-woman. The injured were brought to the lodging house or the eating house, just as it happened. When a hastily improvised boat came to their aid, she went in it over to see that some refreshment was prepared for the workers; and later, when the sullen flood receded to a languid swell, she paddled back and forth on foot, her petticoats gathered in one sweep of her arm, and whatever was necessary to carry held fast with the other.
“You’ll get your death, Aunt Huldah,” remonstrated the agent, when she had struggled across to the station to send a telegram to Billy Gaines.
“I reckon not,” she returned, with twinkling eye. “Seems like you can’t drown me. I’ve been flooded out six times; twict at El Captain, once at Blowout and now three times here; and I ain’t drownded yet. This is a good long telegraft that I’m a-sendin’; but I reckon the railroad won’t grudge it to me.”
“You bet they won’t,” returned the boy, heartily, as he addressed himself to his key. “I’ll add a message of my own to a fellow I know at El Paso, and get him to hunt Billy up if he’s on duty to-night.”
Huldah beamed. “That’s awful good of you,” she returned; “but if you had seen that little woman over there a runnin’ from one window to another, a wringin’ her hands and carryin’ on so that I’m ’most afraid to leave her alone, you’d be glad to do it.”