CHAPTER XII
THE RISING FLOOD
Stumbling, slipping, sliding, half-falling, bruising themselves on thesharp rocks, but ever leaping forward toward the sides of the tunnel,and away from the depressed centre down which they could see the rushof waters coming, the boy ranchers at last managed to reach the granitewall. Nort had succeeded in grabbing up one of the lanterns, but therewas no time for Dick or Bud to take one, and the food had to beabandoned.
"Climb up! Climb up, if there's a ledge!" shouted Bud. "We'll bedrowned if we can't get above the water!"
He had, somehow or other, brought up in the rear. Though he did notadmit it, this was because he had shoved his cousins ahead of him,hoping thus to enable them to gain a safe place.
And as Nort and Dick glanced back they saw, in the gleam of the onelantern left alight, a white mass of water bearing down on them, and,seemingly, filling the tunnel from wall to wall, as it rushed foamingand murmuring onward.
It was as though a dam had suddenly burst, or some obstruction had beenremoved, allowing the pent-up waters to rush along the accustomedchannel. And if you have ever noticed a dammed-up stream, say in somegutter, thus quickly released, you can imagine what happened on alarger scale in the tunnel where the boys were.
The water, normally, flowed only in the four-foot channel. But now itspread out on either side, and, of course, was much deeper in thecentre. But as the tunnel sloped from either wall, in a sort of Vshape to the centre channel, naturally the parts nearest the side wallswere less covered by water than the others.
It was because of this that Bud, Nort and Dick were enabled to maintaina footing, though they were knee-deep in water in an instant, and theone remaining lantern had to be held up to prevent it from beingengulfed and extinguished in the sudden flood.
"Climb up! Climb up!" shouted Bud. "Isn't there some place--somerocky ledge--where you can find a footing? The water's getting deeper!"
And this was true. Either the flood was growing at its source (a placeas yet unknown to the boys) or it was running too rapidly, and in toogreat a volume, to accommodate itself to the tunnel channel, and wasthus piling up in the vicinity of the boys.
"What happened? What caused it?" cried Nort.
"Never mind that--now!" shouted Bud. "Find the highest place you can,and stick!"
"Suppose the whole tunnel fills?" asked Dick, trying to pierce thesemi-gloom, and look for a refuge on the rocky wall.
"If it does we'll have to swim for it," grimly said Bud. "But isn'tthere some place where you can climb up?"
"This looks like a ledge," Dick answered, as he caught sight of adarker shadow on the rocky wall of the tunnel, above his head, when hisbrother swung the lantern.
"Just what we need!" exclaimed Bud, as he waded through theever-deepening water to the side of his cousins. "Up with you! Here,Nort, I'll hold the lantern until you make it!"
Thus, again, Bud was seeing that his cousins reached a place ofcomparative safety before he looked to himself. For they found theledge, once they had scrambled up to it, well above the water, and wideenough to give shelter and a safe perch for all three.
"Whew! That was touch and go!" murmured Bud, as he leaned back, halfexhausted, against the rocky wall at the rear of the ledge.
"I should say so!" gasped Dick. "It all happened so suddenly that Idon't know yet what it was all about."
"The stream suddenly started flowing again," spoke Bud. "That's allthere was to it. Must have been dammed up some place, and suddenlyreleased. It's still rising, too," he added, as he leaned forward andheld the lantern down over the ledge where he and his cousins had takenrefuge.
"Rising?" sharply inquired Nort, and there was a tone of anxiety in hisvoice.
"Yes," remarked Bud, as he swung the lantern to and fro. "We didn'tget up here any too soon, fellows! Look, the water would be up to ourwaists down there now, in the most shallow place, and it's got speedlike one of Christy Mathewson's curves!"
His cousins could see that he had not exaggerated the matter. Thewaters were rising. Inch by inch, and foot by foot, the flood wasapproaching the crest. Where the boy ranchers had sat in the almostdry bed of the stream, to eat their lunch, there was now a mad race ofswirling waters. Where they had stood, before climbing up to the ledgeof safety, there was now three feet depth of water. And, as Bud hadsaid, it was flowing along so swiftly, like the stream which turns amill-wheel, that the boys could hardly have been able to keep theirfeet had they been down in the current, or even on the weakest edge ofit.
But, as they were, they were safe for the time being. How long thatwould be the case none could tell. They could see, in the gleam of theone lantern saved in the mad rush, that the stream was coursing alongas it had never coursed before.
"There must be a powerful lot of water coming out of the reservoirpipe," Nort remarked.
"Biggest ever, with all this water behind forcing it out," agreed Bud."I hope the pipe holds."
"It isn't as if the pipe were the only outlet," said Dick. "You knowthe water can flow out of the tunnel above, and on either side of theconduit."
"Yes," agreed Bud, "and dad had it put in that way on purpose, so ifever a big flood did come, the tunnel could relieve itself withoutripping away the pipe and reservoir. There's a sort of spillway at oneside of the reservoir, you know."
The boys from the east had noticed this. Up to now no water had runoff through this auxiliary channel, but it was there for emergenciessuch as now had occurred. And the water could find a vent and outletdown the middle of Flume Valley, as, indeed, the surplus from thereservoir itself did, when there was any.
"Well, it sure is queer, and we had a mighty narrow escape," remarkedNort, as Bud leaned back again with the lantern. "But the fellows backat the camp will be scared."
"I reckon they will," admitted Bud. "They'll see the water spoutingout, in a greater volume than ever before, and they'll imagine allsorts of things have happened to us."
"Well, nothing has happened yet--except we've lost two perfectly goodlanterns, and what grub we didn't eat," asserted Nort.
"But something else may happen," said Bud in a low voice, as, oncemore, he leaned forward, and again held the lantern over the edge ofthe rocky ledge.
"What?" Dick wanted to know.
"Look," was what Bud replied. And his cousins, glancing down, saw thatthe waters were rising, rising, rising!
When would they stop?
Boy Ranchers in Camp; Or, The Water Fight at Diamond X Page 12
