“Can’t we make a raft?” asked Blake. “We have an axe, and there are trees to be cut down.”
“Good!” cried Mr. Ringold. “We should have thought of that before. We’ll build a raft! On that we may float to safety.”
CHAPTER XXV
THE GOVERNMENT BOAT
But building a raft was not an easy matter. True, the trees could be cut down, but our friends were not skillful woodsmen, and there was nothing with which to bind the logs together. There were some tent ropes, but they were needed to keep up the canvas shelters as long as possible.
“We’ll do the best we can, though,” decided Mr. Ringold, as he and the men and boys labored at the raft.
They hastened with the work, for the water crept higher and higher. By using tough withes, and wild grapevines, they managed to bind the logs fairly well, but, at best, the raft was a very frail affair.
“I’ll never trust myself on that!” declared Miss Shay, shuddering.
“I don’t much fancy it myself,” admitted Mr. Piper.
“But it will be better than staying here and getting—well, getting your feet wet,” spoke Blake. He was going to say “drowned,” but changed his mind.
Higher and higher came the water. There was now only a space of not more than a hundred feet square, to which the refugees had retreated as an area of safety. The raft floated in the water, moored by a long rope of twisted grapevine, and ready for our friends to embark on it.