WHERE DID IT GO?
Pressing back toward the rocky ledge, against which they leaned, gazing with fearsome eyes at the rising waters, on which the lantern-light shone fitfully, and almost holding their breaths at times, so great was the strain, the boy ranchers waited—for what they scarcely knew. And yet they did, in a measure.
For they waited to see if the waters would stop rising, a happening, as they well knew, which, alone, could save their lives.
As one of them had remarked, they might have to swim for it. But, looking at the foaming current, dashing along over jagged rocks on which the boys had more than once stumbled, they knew what a risk that effort to escape would bring.
And should the water fill the whole tunnel they would have no earthly chance!
For only a fish can exist in a hose or pipe completely filled with water, and that is what the tunnel would become if the water rose to the roof—merely a great, underground rocky pipe for the conveying of the liquid from Pocut River.
So you can easily imagine with what anxiety Bud, Nort and Dick watched the rising water. Every now and again one of them would lean over the ledge, swinging the lantern to and fro, so its gleams would be reflected in the hurrying, foaming stream, and indicate how fast it was rising.
At first the rate of rise had been rapid. But as the boys, again and again, made observations in the semi-gloom Bud, at length, uttered a joyful cry.
"Look!" he shouted, pointing with trembling finger at the foamy flood close, now, to the top of the ledge. "Look!"
"What—a big fish?" asked Dick.