"Fish nothing!" retorted his cousin. "But the water is going down! Look, it isn't as high as it was. I can see a wet mark where it came up to, and it's two inches below that now! The flood is going down!"
"Are you sure?" asked Nort, eagerly.
"Look for yourselves!" invited Bud, handing over the lantern.
Nort's observation was confirmatory of his cousin's.
"She is going down!" remarked Nort. "And just in time, too!"
How truly he spoke was evidenced by that fact that another inch of rise would have sent the flood over the ledge on which the boys rested!
So narrow had been their escape!
"If she only doesn't begin to rise again, after she starts going down—as you say she is—we'll be all right," said Dick. "But if she comes up——"
He did not finish what he started to say, but his companions knew what he meant, and they looked each other in the face with grave apprehensions.
"The question is now," went on Bud, as he again took an observation and noted that the flood was still on the descent, "how long we shall have to stay here."