Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 85: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Flood. 67 “Get your rollers ready, Willie. Line’em up. Ali set up there? Hold till I say the word. Easy, now, take up your slack. Hold it! Now —all together—steady!”’ There was a dumb, deadly struggle, as the men strained against the inertia of the big load. Then the barge stirred. It gave hardly more than a wriggle in its muddy bed, but Bain, watching at the water’s edge, knew that in the first round, he and his crew had won. “Steady!” he called. “Hold what you have and get your wind a minute. She’s coming.” Inch by inch, taking every precaution and allowing the water to waste back from the lower end as the hull was dragged upward, the barge was pulled up the slope. After the first great tug had freed the bottom of the boat from its nest of mud, power be- came a secondary consideration. Now they must go slowly for fear of damaging the ancient planking of the sides and bottom. But as dusk settled for the third time upon the group marooned on Indian Mound, the last hatful of water—they had no bucket with which to bale—was flung out of the lbarge, which now rested high and dry. Bain declared it time to “grub up” and sleep. The manager himself mounted guard over the barge and wagon-bed boat. The camp was quiet throughout the night. Dawn came in a lull of the bitter wind which had swept down from the northeast for forty-eight hours. The sky was plas- tered smoothly over with a uniform gray cloudiness, and an occasional small, dry, snowflake brushed Bain’s anxious face as he tramped uphill to camp. “All right, boys!” he called. “Roll out!’ Tattered black forms, dopey with sleep, slowly crawled into sitting postures about the fire, then scrambled to their feet. ‘The heavy work’s over,’ announced the manager. ‘‘We can divide our crew. Wil- he, take Channy and Rob, and get you some good throwing sticks and clubs cut. When you get plenty, take the wagon-bed and see what you can find for grub. ‘Try to get enough for two days.” Soon after a meager breakfast of the interminable meat, meat, meat, with no salt to put on it, the hands were hard at work. Close inspection showed the barge to be in anything but seaworthy condition. There were two holes in the bottom, one fully three feet square, and the side, most of which had been under water, was smashed in several different places. ‘Hit’s sho’ a wreck!” exclaimed Uncle John Key anxiously. “Boss, is we gwine to staht out in dat, an’ it a-spittin’ snow?”’ “We'll cobble it up, Uncle John. We'll have quiet water here in the woods, and after we get to the open we'll be nearly safe.” “Yessuh.”’ The old darkey was apparently reassured. Bain set some of his men to splitting long, straight logs into rough clapboards, while others cleaned the barge. The manager stood over this group and superintended their work closely. “Don’t put too much steam into that scraping, Albert,” he cautioned, critically examining the floor of the flatboat. ‘She won’t stand much man-handling.”’ ‘“‘Nawsuh. She sho’ ain’t overly stout,” acquiesced the cheerful youth. ‘“Mistuh Bain, how is we gwine to patch dem holes?”’ “We'll cobble ’em up, Albert. Is that the boat coming back?” “Hit sho’ is. Dey got a load of rabbits an’ possums too. Jes’ look!” The hunting expedition had certainly been highly successful. . “We jes’ raked ’em in, Cap,” explained Willie. “Us found a drif’ ’bout big as a island. It wuz most covered wid critters, mostly rabbits an’ some ’possums.”’ “Well, their hard luck is our ’vantage,”’ mused Bain, viewing the trophies of the chase. ‘They would have starved or frozen anyway in a couple of days. Unload ’em, and put six or eight men to cleaning and cooking.” When the wagon-bed was empty, the manager had it dragged from the water. “Uncle John, you and Channy and Willie and Anderson take that to pieces. Don’t lose a nail orascrew. That’s what we need most. Don’t wreck the floor; it’s tongue- and-groove; just leave it whole. We'll nail it over those holes.”’ With a sharp ax the floor was cut in — cross-wise; the halves were split. Four patches were thus secured. These were nailed over the yawning holes in the floor of the barge. Bain had a false floor of green clapboards laid amidship when the patching was completed. Earth was spread upon this. “We'll need fire,” he exclaimed; “‘we COMIGDIOOKSEEO