The Moving Picture Boys and the Flood; Or, Perilous Days on the Mississippi

by Victor Appleton

“Turn it over to some of the ladies,” suggested Joe, for a committee of Red Cross women were to go with the relief train.

“I guess I will,” the man said, with an air of relief.

There was a dog who refused to be separated from his soldier-master, and every time the animal was put out of the depot it came rushing back again, determined to board the train. The boys got a picture of this odd little scene, and finally the dog had to be given in charge of a porter, to be led away at the end of a rope, howling his protest at the separation.

“Good work, boys!” complimented Mr. Ringold, when he saw what they were doing. “I’ll use some of these films as part of one of the flood dramas, if we’re lucky enough to be able to get other scenes.”

“Oh, we’ll get some!” declared Blake, confidently.

“That ought to be a fine one,” went on the manager, referring to the relief train scene. “Take good care of that film, boys.”

It was placed in a metal light-tight box, to be developed later, as was the film of repairing the bridge. Blake and Joe intended leaving them at an agency they knew of, farther West, there to be developed, and printed.

“All aboard!” called the conductor of the relief train, and there was the last scurrying and hurrying to finish up the work. This train pulled out ahead of the one the boys and their friends were to take, and it had the right of way, for help was now urgently needed in the flooded district.

Progress from then on, for those who were seeking the lost actors and actresses, was rather slow and uncertain. They were now on the edge of the flooded district, and, though they saw no scenes of actual suffering, as yet, they were held up by such happenings as bridges washed away, or made unsafe, tracks undermined by the rain, and landslides covering the rails.

So they were two days longer on the road than otherwise they would have been. Relief trains, too, had the right of way, and even the regular passenger trains were held back, or switched to other tracks, while the cars laden with soldiers and supplies were rushed forward.