The Claim Jumpers

From the cabin Old Mizzou was shouting to him. He turned to follow the

old man. Back of him something vast and awful roared out, and then all

at once he felt himself struggling with a rush of waters. He was jammed

violently against the posts of the corral. There he worked to his feet.

The whole side of the hill was one vast spread of shallow tossing

water, as though a lake had been let fall on the summit of the ridge.

The smaller bushes were uprooted and swept along, but the trees and

saplings held their own.

In a moment the stones and ridgelets began to show. It was over. Not a

drop of rain had fallen.

Bennington climbed the corral fence and walked slowly to the house. The

blacksmith shop was filled to the window, and Arthur's cabin was not

much better. He entered the kitchen. The floor there was some two

inches submerged, but the water was slowly escaping through the

down-hill door by which Bennington had come in. Across the dining-room

door Mrs. Arthur had laid a folded rug. In front of the barrier stood

the lady herself, vigorously sweeping back the threatening water from

her only glorious apartment.

Bennington took the broom from her and swept until the cessation of the

flood made it no longer necessary. Mrs. Arthur commenced to mop the

floor. The young man stepped outside. There he was joined a moment

later by the other two.

They offered no explanation of their whereabouts during the trouble,

but Bennington surmised shrewdly that they had hunted a dry place.

"Glory!" cried Old Mizzou. "Lucky she misses us!"

"What was it? Where'd it come from?" inquired Bennington, shaking the

surface drops from his shoulders. He was wet through.

"Cloud-burst," replied the miner. "She hit up th' ridge a ways. If

she'd ever burst yere, sonny, ye'd never know what drownded ye. Look at

that gulch!"

The water had now drained from the hill entirely. It could be seen that

most of the surface earth had been washed away, leaving the skeleton of

the mountain bare. Some of the more slightly rooted trees had fallen,

or clung precariously to the earth with bony fingers. But the gulch

itself was terrible. The mountain laurel, the elders, the sarvis

bushes, the wild roses which, a few days before, had been fragrant and

beautiful with blossom and leaf and musical with birds, had

disappeared. In their stead rolled an angry brown flood whirling in

almost unbroken surface from bank to bank. Several oaks, submerged to

their branches, raised their arms helplessly. As Bennington looked,

one of these bent slowly and sank from sight. A moment later it shot

with great suddenness half its length into the air, was seized by the

eager waters, and whisked away as lightly as though it had been a tree

of straw. Dark objects began to come down with the stream. They seemed

to be trying to preserve a semblance of dignity in their stately

bobbing up and down, but apparently found the attempt difficult. The

roar was almost deafening, but even above it a strangely deliberate

grinding noise was audible. Old Mizzou said it was the grating of

boulders as they were rolled along the bed of the stream. The yellow

glow had disappeared from the air, and the gloom of rain had taken its

place.