The great flood had caused an almost complete cessation of river navigation, at least in the stretches where they now were. They had seen no craft of any kind since being obliged to take to the raft, and the river was so wide that they could not communicate with towns on shore. They passed several small hamlets that were deserted, for the water was up to the second stories of the houses. The inhabitants had fled back to higher ground.
“Well, we’ve got to do something,” said Blake, when noon came, and the pangs of hunger were felt. “I wonder if we couldn’t build a signal fire, or raise a flag of distress, or something like that. It might bring help.”
“We could try,” agreed Joe. “Let’s hoist a blanket up on the lantern pole, and make a smudge fire. It’ll be safe, for there’s so much water around us that we can put it out easily enough. It might do some good.”
A ragged blanket was nailed up as high on the pole, amidships, as they could reach, by standing on some boxes. Then preparations for making a smudge fire, or one that smoked, rather than blazed, went on.
“Make it up forward,” suggested Mr. Ringold. “And take a piece of the stove grate from the oven to keep the blaze up from the logs. They’re green, but they might burn through, and cause trouble.”
Blake went forward to look for a good place to make the fire, which would be fed with damp wood, to cause more smoke. Joe was preparing some splinters and light kindling, from packing boxes, to start it.
“Say, but I am hungry!” murmured Joe, as he looked for matches.
“So am I!” echoed his chum. “But I guess we’ll have to take it out in—coffee.”
The fire was made, and a dense cloud of smoke arose.
“They ought to see that from shore, if it is two or three miles away,” remarked C. C.