“But the dam—if there is one——?”
“Well, they mostly use dynamite to blow up ice jams. So I guess it’s a question of how soon somebody gets to this one with a cartridge.”
Sam groaned. The Shark put out a hand in the darkness and caught his arm.
“Nobody’s fault, this fix. Couldn’t get to high ground after that wave came along. Doubt if we could have made it before that—lot of low places in between. Nobody to blame. Sensible thing to stay here. That’s the whole story.”
“I hope so,” said Sam very soberly. He shook off the hand, and moved to the window. Dark as the night was, he could not escape conviction that the water was still climbing higher and higher.
Lon brought his story to a close, and there was silence in the room. It made all the more marked the noises without, the beat of the rain, the swirl of the flood against the house. There were other sounds, too, weird and mysterious, some faint and far off; others near at hand and still more disturbing. As for the house itself, it seemed to be straining like a ship in a storm, while it hardly needed a lively fancy to find in its shaking a hint of the trembling of a vessel’s hull under the pounding of big waves. Yet it was evident that the stout old building was withstanding the flood better than many a more modern and more lightly constructed house could have hoped to withstand it. Nevertheless, there was mighty complaint of beam and upright, which was not cheering to hear. Sam, listening and watchful, was a bit encouraged. The house might shake from roof to foundation, but it seemed to be coming to no harm. The huge chimney, doubtless, was like a brace to the entire structure.
Even if the house stood, though, there remained another question to be answered: How long would the flood continue to rise?
The Shark plainly feared that they were still far from the greatest peril from this source. Sam had to own that the fear might be justified. The suggestion of an ice jam and ice dam at the foot of the valley could not be verified, of course, but it was possible to gauge the steady rise of the water. Sam made the stairs a practical register. From time to time he ventured down them, and regularly found the invading flood a little higher than before.
The hours wore away slowly. At intervals some one or another of the refugees announced the time, striking a match ostensibly in order to glance at his watch, but taking remarkable care to save the tiny flame as long as possible. Everybody craved light. Lack of it was, in fact, the hardest part of the ordeal. Warmth, too, would have been welcome, but the night was not cold and the need of a fire was felt less acutely than the dispiriting effect of the dense darkness.
Talk was intermittent. Now and again somebody would rouse to interest in some aspect of their situation, and perhaps stir his neighbors to join in a discussion, and Lon told a dozen stories; but there were half-hours when nobody spoke. Sam, with his sense of responsibility strong upon him, studied his companions. The Shark caused him little concern. Silent meditation was quite in keeping with the habits of the mathematical youth, and Sam had no reason to doubt his nerve in case of grave emergency.