“It’s too dark,” decided Joe.
“You can get some to-morrow morning,” Colonel Whitmore told them. “We’ll still be here in the morning, unless the river rises too suddenly.”
“Is it going up fast now?” asked Mr. Ringold.
“About an inch an hour, and that’s fast enough for us,” was the grim answer, and the Southerner looked at a stick he had thrust into the bank at the edge of the stream, to keep watch of the rate of rise. It was marked with little notches, an inch apart, and these notches were slowly, but gradually and relentlessly, being covered by the rising flood of the Mississippi.
All through the night they toiled, the moving picture boys working with feverish energy to do what they could to help save the town. There was really no obligation on them to do this, but they felt a friendly interest in those whose homes were in danger from the great flood.
And the boys, also, might be said to have a little selfish motive. They wanted to get moving pictures of the work of strengthening the levee, as this would form part of the series of stirring views they hoped to get. Thus another of the many phases of the work of fighting the flood could be shown.
Barrow-load after barrow-load of dirt was piled on the levee, and bags of earth and stone placed where they would do the most good. Everyone was working hard, by the light of the flaring torches. It was hard, dirty and unpleasant labor, for it rained at intervals, all night. Splashing through the mud, slipping and sliding on the treacherous footing, Joe and Blake toiled with the rest. They wore their rubber boots and raincoats, which, in a great measure, protected them.
And, be it said to the credit of Christopher Cutler Piper, he labored as hard as any of the others, and never made a complaint.
“It’s coming morning,” said Colonel Whitmore, as he pointed to a faint gray streak in the east. “We’ll have better light to work by, soon.”
Slowly the light grew, and, with the coming of the dawn, the rain ceased—at least for a time.