“But they may be able to get a message through, somehow,” said the manager, hopefully. “We’ll wait half a day or so, after I send the dispatch, in case an answer should come back.”
Supper over, the bunks were arranged for the night. The weather was calmer now than at any time since the storms began that had caused the flood. The sun shone through the clouds a little, as it set. Blake and Joe, on the after deck of the motor boat, looked about them. On all sides stretched a vast extent of waters. They had driven a stake in near shore, and watched it to note the rise of the river. It was very slight now.
“Say!” exclaimed Blake, as he glanced over toward the upside-down house, “let’s go over there and look inside. Maybe we can find something of value, that we might save for the owners.”
“I’m with you,” agreed Joe. Mr. Ringold offered no objection, and, after casting off the line, the motor boat was started up, proceeding slowly to the side of the overturned dwelling. The craft was then made fast to a hook in one corner.
“Let’s go in,” proposed Blake, when they had gazed through a window for a moment, not being able, however, to distinguish much.
“How do you act in an upside-down house?” asked Joe.
“You have to walk on the ceiling, of course,” answered his chum. “The ceiling is the floor and the floor the ceiling. Come on.”
They crawled in through a window. As Blake had said, they had to step on the ceiling, and with caution, too, for it was only lath and plaster. Over their heads was the floor, with the sagging carpet still tacked to it.
Of course all the furniture was on the ceiling, too, and it was in great confusion. Bureaus had fallen on their sides, smashing the plaster, and pictures had dropped from their hooks and lay on the ceiling. The house was a flat-roofed one, and all of what had been the third story was now under water. The third story was now the cellar, and the cellar, or what had corresponded to it, was the attic. Though, as the bottom of the cellar had been left on the ground when the house was washed from the foundations, there was no roof to the “attic.”
“Quite a mix-up!” murmured Joe, as they went from room to room, stepping over the tops of the door openings.