CHAPTER VIII
THE MOTOR BOAT
“There she comes!”
“And see! It’s all she can do to stem the current!”
Joe and Blake were watching the approach of a small steam tug, that was coming up the stream. Powerful as she looked, it was all she could do to make headway, so forceful was the swollen river.
“We can’t all get aboard her,” declared Mr. Piper, who, with the boys, Mr. Ringold, and some others, was standing in the rain, near the abutments of the vanished bridge. “If we try to she’ll sink.”
“Say, please don’t talk that way!” begged the manager. “We are going to have troubles enough, without that.”
“Oh, all right. But I just want to be careful,” spoke C. C.
“The boat will make several trips—there will be no danger,” said the train conductor. “The railroad will look after its passengers.”
This was reassuring, but still the danger was great. Now that the moving picture boys were actually at the scene of the flood they realized, better than any printed account, or any pictures, could convey to them, how great was the desolation. It seemed as though a little higher rise in the river would flood the whole country.
“I think I will abandon my idea of trying to make any dramatic pictures,” said Mr. Ringold, thoughtfully, as he and the boys watched the approach of the tug. “We will devote our energies to finding the missing members of my company, and in making scenes of the flood. It would be out of the question to try and make dramas. I can see that now.”