interview the ticket man.”

As customary in towns and small cities, the telegraph operator was also the ticket agent; although there were express and station representatives. He seemed to be busily employed taking and receiving messages, and paid not the slightest attention to the two scouts as they came to the window of his booth.

As both Hugh and Billy had studied telegraphy, and were, in fact, pretty clever operators, they soon began to try and read the message as it came clicking over the wires.

The very first words they deciphered gave them a severe shock, and made them doubly eager to catch still more, for they were “bad washouts,” “all trains withdrawn until further orders!”

It was a troubled face that Billy turned toward his chum. The agent had left the telegraph instrument, and was hurrying outside, without appearing to notice them. He acted like a man who had a heavy weight on his mind.

“Did you get that part of the message, Billy?” asked Hugh gravely.

“We’re going to be shut up here in Lawrence, seems like, and marooned.” answered the other. “Gosh! It does take the cake what queer things happen to you and me, Hugh. Of all the times we might have taken to come over here, we hit on the one great day Lawrence has ever known. Looks like we’re in the soup.”

“As long as we manage to keep from being in the flood we shouldn’t complain, I take it,” the patrol leader suggested.

“Where’s he’s gone to, do you reckon, Hugh?”

“The agent?” queried the second lad. “Outside, to write some sort of notice on the bulletin board where they announce whether trains are on time or not.”

“Let’s go and see,” suggested Billy.

They found that Hugh had hit the right nail on the head when he hazarded that opinion, for the agent was just finishing some sort of notice, using a piece of chalk to write it. Several other people came hurrying over to learn what it might be, so that the nucleus of a crowd quickly gathered there.

Just as the boys expected, after having picked up the shreds of information from the sounder inside the ticket office, it was an announcement that was destined to add considerable gloom to the already sinking hearts of those who lived in and around Lawrence, the isolated little flood city.

“Owing to serious washouts above and below Lawrence, all train service has had to be abandoned until further notice!”

“That settles it,” said Billy, rubbing his chin with thumb and forefinger in a way he had when pondering over anything. “We’re in it up to our necks.”

“Oh! I hope not—yet,” Hugh told him. “You’re only going to have that wish you made so recklessly, gratified. After this I’d advise you to think twice before you say things like that, Billy. But here we are, and the only thing that worries me is that the folks at home will be distressed.”

“We might get a message through still, if the wires haven’t all been carried down with the embankment. Let’s make the try, Hugh.”

As the suggestion also appealed to the patrol leader, they once more entered the station. Fortunately the agent had not taken it upon himself to shut up shop and go home simply because there would be no more trains along in either direction that day. As long as the wires were working, he would have to stick to his post.

“We are from Oakvale, and would like to get a message through if it could be done,” Hugh informed him.

“Wires pretty busy with public business,” the agent said. “If you write it out, I’ll see what I can do for you. I expect any old time to find that my last connection has broken down; and after that we’ll get no news, unless they send it to us by pigeon post or via aëroplane, as all country roads are flooded.”

Accordingly Hugh wrote a brief message, telling how they were marooned in the flooded district, and asking that Billy’s folks be informed, so that they would not be worried over the non-return of the boys.

“I think I might get that through right now, as there seems to be a little lull in official business,” the accommodating agent told them, as though he liked their faces, and rather sympathized with their predicament of being caught in such a trap so far away from home.

It turned out that fortune was kind to them, for they presently heard him sending Hugh’s message. At its conclusion, both lads heaved sighs of satisfaction. They could endure whatever might be in store for them with more grit and a determination not to be dismayed now that they knew the dear ones at home would understand the reason of their not turning up.

After paying for the message and thanking the accommodating agent warmly, Hugh and Billy hastened outside. They realized they were due for new and decidedly interesting experiences; and there was a sort of half-suppressed excitement in the atmosphere of the place that was beginning to affect them.

People were getting more aroused every minute. The report that the trains to the city had all been stopped by serious washouts was being circulated in every direction. The boys could see that it added one more straw to the load that was being placed upon the backs of these Lawrence people.

“Most of them seem to be heading down toward the river,” remarked Billy. “So I propose that we walk that way, too.”

He heard no opposition from his chum, because Hugh had just been about to suggest the same thing himself. Puddles of water lay in their path almost everywhere; but these received only scant attention. Beyond lay the river, and that riveted their gaze immediately.

“Holy smoke! look at it swirling along, and as yellow as mud!” exclaimed Billy, who was a bit addicted to slang, though most of his outcroppings along that line were of a harmless character.

“It certainly is on the boom,” admitted Hugh. “It’s hard to believe that raging torrent can be the same little river that in summertime lazily meanders through this section of country. It’s carrying all sorts of flotsam and jetsam along now. See, there goes a chicken-coop; and out further is the trunk of a tree. Everything movable has to take a place in the procession when Mr. Flood comes to town.”

“Oh! see the barn coming, will you?” exclaimed Billy. “It can never go under the bridge, Hugh. When it strikes, the old thing will rattle all to pieces, I guess. Now watch what happens. Say, I think those people on the bridge are taking mighty big chances to stay there so as to see all that goes on. What if—there, now it’s going to smash up against the bridge!... Oh!”

Even as Billy was saying this in a strained voice, meanwhile clutching the arm of his companion’s raincoat in his excitement, they heard a crash; and then the barn, already badly racked by its tribulations while floating on the flood, went to pieces.

Some of the boys who were eagerly observing these happenings gave vent to a cheer, as though they thought it a treat when the unlucky barn ceased to exist, and the fragments floated off on the whirling waters.

“Whee! it looked to me like it might be nip and tuck between the barn and that old bridge,” Billy remarked, as he drew a long breath. “Why, Hugh, I could see it quivering to beat the band; and honestly one time I even thought it was going to drop over into the flood!”

“I saw the same thing, Billy,” asserted the other boy quickly.

“What made it act that way, Hugh? Looks to me as if it ought to be a pretty strong sort of a bridge, though if the river rises much more, the water’ll come level with the