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"Driftwood". Raymond S. Spears
Читать онлайн.Название "Driftwood"
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066411992
Автор произведения Raymond S. Spears
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
"Howdy!" he hailed. "Where’s your daddy?"
"Up to Cape Girardeau," Sibley replied.
"Will you go back on rescue work?"
"Tripping down alone? Say! you’ve a good motor-boat there! Will you go back on rescue work?—back in the swamps?"
He pointed with a sweep of his arm into the back country of southeastern Missouri.
"Why—" Sibley began.
"You’re needed, boys! Every boat’s needed! Every one who can drive a boat is out—and you’re river boys and know the water!"
"Well—sure!" Sibley exclaimed. "You’ll go, Jimmy? We’ll take the motor-boat."
"Yes, sir!"
"I’ll have to watch the kid and shanty-boat," Jep said.
"Good boys!" the man exclaimed, with a catch of his breath.
"Where’ll we go in?" Sib asked, looking along the bank that was above water.
"You can make it around the head of the levee, down in the bend, there. Portage Bayou heads there, and you go down that, or go west over the bottoms. You can’t fail to find work to do, but specially down along Little River’s a lot of trouble. The river’s on the rise, and another foot, on top of what’s coming through those low levees above Cairo. Go to it!"
"After I’ve sent a message," Sib said. "I’ll tow the shanty-boat in to a landing, and we’ll start in the launch in ten minutes—down Portage Bayou?"
"You can’t miss it through the brake. ’Course, out in the fields you’ll have to feel along. There’ll likely be boats down there, telling you which way to work. Anyhow, anybody on a roof, take ’em in!"
They ran the boats out of the river into Sawmill Bayou, where other shanty-boats had moored. They landed against the bank, and made fast to a stump and a fence post that were just being surrounded by the rising tide. As they cast off the motor-boat lines, a man in hip boots, a broad-brimmed hat, and black frock coat came down to them.
"Going out, boys?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good! Take some grub with you—"
"That’s so!" Sib gasped.
"You can’t go wrong, back there. If they’re reasonably safe, go after those that won’t last!"
Sibley’s message to his parents read:
Landed at New Madrid, with two Veraine boys and unknown baby. Sib.
"I won’t tell them I’m going into the overflow," Sib mused. "Mother’d worry worse than ever!"
"I’ll deliver it to the telegraph office," the man said. "The wires are down, though, and they can’t send it, yet. You’re Sibley Carruth, eh? We had word to watch out for you. Good-by!"
Sib and Jimmy backed out into the bayou and, turning around, headed down the New Madrid waterfront, which was only a few inches above the level of the flood. They could look the length of the main street as they ran down, with the bank on one side and the black drift a few yards distant on the other.
Below town the high ground dipped down under the water surface, and they saw the end of the levee, around the head of which the water was sloping and rocking in a current out into the vast stillness of the overflow.
"There’s not much water across," Sib said. "We must be drawing—how much?"
"Eighteen inches. There’s two feet o’ water across there. See the way it flows?" Jimmy pointed.
Then, in silence, with the motor almost stopped, they shot down the current from the river around the levee-head, into the water that had come down the bottoms from the broken levees above the Ohio.
Houses half submerged stood in the midst of great lakes, but rowboats fast to the balcony posts showed that the people there had means of escape. It was when they skirted around flooded woods, followed a road cut through the timber, and entered the clearings in the wilderness miles from the town that they found their work to do.
"Oh-h! Mister! Mister!" a voice shrieked. "This-yeah house is twistin’, an’ we ain’t no boat!"
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