Presently trees and wreckage of different sorts were seen drifting down, and there came a rushing sound which added greatly to the weirdness of the scene.

"This beats me!" Jule muttered. "The flood has been going down for nearly a week. There must have been heavy rains up to the north, and at the sources of the rivers emptying into the Mississippi. I wonder if it will do anything to us?"

At that moment a timber crashed against the _Rambler_, jarring it considerably.

Clay and the others were out of their bunks in a minute, and out on deck to see what had taken place. Alex. was the first one to grasp the situation.

"We'll have to turn on the motors to hold this boat," he said. "The anchor lies in the mud, and will pull away at the first push of a current. First thing we know, we'll be down there in a cypress swamp!"

"You're excited!" Case called out. "We pa.s.sed the flood two days ago."

"That's the trouble," Alex. explained. "We pa.s.sed the flood! The crest of it is still to the north of us. It has undoubtedly been raining up river, and that has swelled the volume of water."

"Do you mean that we got down the river in advance of the flood?"

demanded Case.

"We have been going a little faster than the current, haven't we, notwithstanding our tying up nights?" Alex. asked. "This little boat has been going some! To-night the crest of the flood overtakes us.

See?"

"It doesn't look reasonable!" Case insisted. "I don't believe it!"

"The kid is right," Clay declared. "I have often read about boats meeting the flood the second time, once when they pa.s.sed it, and once when it caught up with them."

The roaring sound which Mose had referred to now grew louder, sounding like the rush of a long and heavily loaded freight train.

While the lads listened, hardly knowing what to do to protect themselves, Mose pointed a shaking hand at a spot far down the lagoon.

Clay looked and saw a great blaze on what seemed a wooded knoll to the west of the river.

"There's a camp down there!" he said.

"That makes it nice!" grinned Alex. "No honest men ever made camp in that hole at this season of the year! It is dollars to tripe that if we don't put on power the crest of the flood will wash us down, when the full strength comes, and beach us among a band of river pirates!

If we don't get under way up stream we'll have do to something to make the anchor hold!"

While the boys were discussing some way of accomplishing this, for they did not like the idea of breasting the flood, the crest of the flood came seething down the stream, a wall of water four feet high!

It swept over the point of land between the river and the bayou and dashed against the _Rambler_.

The anchor held for a minute, then the boys knew that they were in motion. The current seemed stronger there than in the river itself.

"The water is cutting a new channel below," Clay shouted, as the _Rambler_ was swept away, "and we are headed for that swamp. Now, we are in a peck of trouble!"

CHAPTER XIX

PILGRIMS FROM OLD CHICAGO

The "peck of trouble" referred to as their portion by Clay turned out to be a full bushel, and good measure at that, in a very short time.

Although the boys turned on the power--a thing they should have done long before--as soon as the crest of water came in sight, the _Rambler_ was pitched down toward the swamp like a chip.

If the boys had been able to direct her course, they might have held her in the current, and so kept out of the muck hole into which she was swept when the water cut around a bend, driving straight on the sh.o.r.e. But just as the craft was getting under control a ma.s.s of limbs and cane-brake tangled her propellers, and she went down with the flood, striking, as has been said, in a swamp where the head of the bayou had been, and into which the water still poured.

It was pitch dark out on the river and in the swamp, but the lights of the _Rambler_ cast a circle of illumination about the spot where she lay, so that the black, bubbling water, with all the unclean reptiles it was forcing forth from their haunts, was in full view. It was carrying wreckage now, and this was piling up between the current and the boat, shutting off all chances of backing out, even if the current would have permitted it. It was indeed a desperate situation.

The motor boat had come to a stop against two monster cypress trees, between which she had wedged her nose. Only for this she might have been carried farther into the swamp, the water being deep for some distance ahead.

During the whirling pa.s.sage down the bayou, while the boat was b.u.mping against tree trunks and bounding off with a jar and a swish to go swinging around again, like a foolish dancer doing the time limit, Mose had clung tightly to one of Clay's legs. At the very beginning of that mad race he had caught sight of a couple of alligators, and was in deadly fear that they would climb on board and make a meal of him!

When the boat finally lodged between the giant trees, the little negro boy bounded from the deck and, seizing hold of a ma.s.s of vines, clambered up the tree to the west like a young monkey! Believing that he would have to help the others up, he carried a rope with him!

Finally, sitting astride of a limb, he called down what he considered very good advice to the boys on the boat.

"Dey done get yo', sho'!" he warned. "Catch on de rope an' shin up!"

Serious as the situation was, with the water trinkling in over the stern of the motor boat, the boys grinned at each other at the fright of the boy.

"Come on down!" Alex. called. "If the boat should break away from the trees, you would be left alone in the swamp. Come on down and help get the boat out of this blessed swamp! You may get out with your rope and tow her if you want to!" he added, with a chuckle.

"Fo' de Lawd!" cried Mose, shuddering at the idea of getting into water inhabited by monsters who would leave a fat pig to feast off a black boy!

At least that was what one of the boys had said to him!

Attracted by the strange lights, walking and creeping things now began gathering in the shadows at the rim of the circle of light. Once Clay caught sight of the soft, appealing eyes of a deer, and now and then the howls of a swamp cat came to their ears above the roaring of the flood. Great water snakes struck their heads above the surface and looked, red-eyed, and hostile, at the boys.

Swamp creatures with soft fur and frightened eyes crouched on fallen trees and scanned the deck as a possible refuge. To make the scene more desolate still, if possible, two round-eyed owls answered each other's cries from a near-by cypress.

"Say," Jule whispered to Clay, during a little lull in the rain, "there's a man by that tree. I've been watching him a long time. Look at him!"

Clay followed the line of the pointing finger and laughed.

"Why, that's a bear!" he shouted. "A swamp bear--one of the kind Teddy Roosevelt came down here to shoot when he was president! Let him alone and he'll let us alone. They fight like devils when wounded or molested."

The boys all agreed to let the bear alone, but Captain Joe and Teddy seemed to have notions of hospitality. The dog barked invitingly, and Teddy did a stunt of bear talk which brought the wanderer one tree nearer to the boat. He was now in the circle of light, and could get no nearer without swimming.

"He sees Teddy and wants to ask his advice!" Jule laughed.

At that moment Mose, noting that the boys were gazing fixedly in one direction, turned his eyes that way and saw the bear. The shriek he let out might, it seemed, have been heard in New Orleans, if the wind had been blowing in that direction!

"Ah's a gone c.o.o.n!" he wailed, after that one yell. "Ah's a goin' whar de good n.i.g.g.e.rs go! Good bear! Good bear!" he added coaxingly.

The bear looked upon the scene for a moment longer with disapproving eyes and then turned away. For a moment he was seen walking on jammed logs, alternately wading through shallow places, and then he was lost in the darkness.

"There!" Alex. called out to Mose, "you've frightened our bear off!"

"Dat yo' bear?" asked Mose. "Den yo' keep yo' animile out our ya'd!"

Although frequently invited to return to the boat, Mose insisted on keeping his place in the tree. Now and then he called out that a bear or a deer was about to board the _Rambler_, but for the most part he sat still, looking about for more things to be frightened at!