Now came a new cause of alarm. Some shift in the current began to swerve drifting objects toward their island. A score or more of big logs, freed by the breaking of some boom up-stream, came like a fleet of rams to batter the walls of the rickety structure. By this time the water was more than knee deep on the highest part of the earth floor of the shed, and Poke and Step were perched in insecurity on a pile of old boxes in a corner. The only alleviating feature of their situation was a lessening of the darkness with the coming of the dull dawn; but it was still a faint twilight which was all about them when the end of the shed came.
Another lot of logs, traveling with even more momentum than the first flotilla, seemed to charge upon them. One tore a great hole in the shed wall; a second ripped away an end. Then a huge timber lodged against an upright of the framework, and with the full force of the flood behind it, turned like a beam of a great derrick, carrying away what was left of the roof, tearing out the wall as if it had been made of paper, and completing the ruin of the shed. The pile of boxes was tossed aside, and Poke and Step were pitched into the water.
The big log, though, served them a good turn as well as a bad one. Their asylum was gone, but the boat had been set afloat by the blow, and, what was still better, was floating right side up. Half full of water as it was, it was a very ark of safety to the boys, who climbed aboard just as the current seized it and carried it free of the wreckage.
For a moment or two the voyagers were content to sit still and regain breath. Then, pluckily, they set about improving the opportunity for escape which Fortune had thrown in their way.
There were no oars aboard, but Step tore a broken thwart from its fastenings. One piece of the board he gave to Poke and another he himself put over the side. Both boys fell to paddling frantically—but to small avail. The punt was heavy, clumsy, water-logged. The paddles were the poorest of excuses. It was all they could do to swing the blunt bow of the boat toward the dimly visible shore; and after ten minutes’ hard, but vain, endeavor the chums ceased their labors.
Their plight now was distressful, though possibly having less of peril than had threatened them on their temporary island. Their ark, if unmanageable, kept afloat, and was stout enough to be in no great danger from collision with other flotsam borne along by the current. They were in water half-way to their knees, but even if the boat filled, its wooden bulk promised sufficient buoyancy to support them.
“Sooner or later [we’ll have to drift ashore—somewhere],” Poke remarked philosophically. “Kind of like the stone you chuck in the air—‘What goes up must come down,’ you know. And this isn’t the ocean—we’ll make land after a while.”
“[WE’LL HAVE TO DRIFT ASHORE SOMEWHERE]”
“Huh! Don’t make out any now!” croaked Step.