freshets. Are these wide lands safe in case of flood? The oldest settlers affirm that they have known floods in the Missouri before now, yet have never seen this tract quite submerged; and Mr. Wilson (that is the farmer's name) can safely say that all his experience confirms them.

By the spring of 1881 these misgivings have grown very hazy indeedso hazy that though he hears of gigantic snowfields in the mountains by the River Plate, that, melting, must in time sweep down into the Missouri, he is not particularly troubled. The river is already swollen very nearly to the high-water line; but this is not serious enough to prevent his starting off one morning with his wife for the nearest railroad town, where he has some pressing business. The town is thirty miles off; so the farmer and his wife intend to sleep the night there and return on the following day.

Mrs. Wilson took her youngest child with her. The frame-house was left in charge of Henry, a boy of fifteen, who promised faithfully to look after the rest of the family--two little daughters, Izah and Jennie, of ten and six years old. To help him in the necessary work of the farm-buildings there was a hired man," Rudolph by name. This Rudolph, however, had relatives near -a mile or two back from the river-to whose house he had been invited that night. And as soon as the work of the day was over he left Henry in charge alone.

"I'm just going over to look up the folks," he explained.

Look out for me about ten."

"How soon will you be back?" "Oh! I don't mean to be long. Henry was an independent boy. He had been left alone of an evening before this, and did not mind it in the least. So he watched Rudolph striding away across the fields, and turned to amuse his sisters till bed-time.

They had "a good time," telling tales and speculating on the presents their parents would bring home to them. Izah chose a doll, Jennie a picture-book "with giants inside," and Henry elected for a "real" derringer "that would kill a man,” he explained, "if he came foolin' round." As it was, he had an old fowling-piece, and there was his father's gun hanging by the chimney; so that he felt quite able to cope with robbers and such cattle should any come foolin' around" before Rudolph returned, which was unlikely.

The children, in fact, went off to bed by nine o'clock; and within ten minutes all three were sleeping a perfectly tranquil and fearless sleep.

Henry awoke to find the sun already up and shining in at the window. Running to the door he called for Rudolph, as was his father's custom. No Rudolph answered.

"Rudolph! Rudolph! The fellow can't be sleeping still. More likely he's dressed and out doing the chores," thought the boy. To make sure, he called again.

It was odd. There seemed to be a roaring sound, quite continuous, in his ears this morning. His own voice sounded faint beside it. The family in that frame-house, accustomed for years to the noise of the river, now no longer

noticed it. It had become a part of their life. Something wrong with my head," thought the boy; and then-"No; it's the river, I do b'lieve. What's the matter with it this morning, anyway? It sounds as if it was all round and round us. Goodness, if it is!"

He ran to the window, and saw a sight that brought his heart up with a jerk. All around was water-water spread all over the pastures, the cornfields, the fences; swirling round the trunks of the great trees, hiding the stockyard, rushing past in one wide, foaming, turbid torrent. Dotted here and there he saw the heads of the cattle as they were borne past, battling piteously; then the floating carcases of other cattle from higher up the river; then a jumble of logs, branches, and barrels and splintered wood, that spun round like a great raft as the flood hurried it along. There were tall trees, too, torn up by their roots, and huge lumps of white ice from the mountains, and then the battered roof of a house, sailing dismally down.

The terrified boy thrust his head out at the window and looked down. The foundations of the frame-house stood well above the cattle-yards, but already the doorsteps were under water, and the angry waves furrowing and eating away the earth around. It seemed to melt like snow before them. It dawned on him that their safety was a matter of minutes.

At first the knowledge petrified him. He stood as if rooted beside the window, his eyes glued to the work of devastation, watching the waves surging higher and higher, the gutters broadening, the soil running down and mingling with the flood. Then, at last, tearing himself away from the fascinating horror, he ran to the door and shouted "Rudolph! Rudolph!" again and again. Again no Rudolph answered. But now from their room his little sisters came running out in their night-gowns. They had been awakened by his screams; had heard the loud roaring; had looked out of their windows and seen the same awful sight; and now they clung to him, crying and sobbing.

The sight of helplessness even greater than his own braced the boy somewhat. He told them to run and dress as quickly as they could, and ran downstairs to see how high the water had risen.

He dashed into the kitchen. Already big pools were gathering on the floor, the water gushing up through every chink and crack. Even while he looked, it rose fast-rose till the boards were covered-rose till the legs of the table and chairs were an inch deep. It seemed to rob him of all power of thought, this stealthy unrelenting force, gathering and growing to destroy him. It seemed he must stand there and wait till the flood rose up-up -until it swallowed him. "Father!" he cried once, and then leant back in the doorway with the stream pouring round his ankles.

"Thud!" It was the sound of a big ice-cake bumping outside against the door, and it roused him. Thud! thud! He pulled himself up, though his knees were still trembling, dashed the weak tears from his eyes, and tried to think.

How was it possible, without Rudolph's help, to save his little sisters and himself? He waded across to the kitchen window and looked out. Just before it stood a huge elm-tree, and under the shade of it a grindstone. The trunk was but six or seven feet from the doorstep-a giant elm, about sixteen feet in girth. Against it now the flood was surging and beating. The grindstone had gone-overturned and now covered by the waters.

In an instant the boy's mind was made up; his plan was conceived.

The old elm had many thick out-reaching branches, and one of the largest of these stretched well over a corner of the kitchen roof. This roof was flat, and built out from the first storey of the house, so that from the secondstorey windows one could step straight out upon it. Time upon time had the boy got on to the roof, straddled the branch, and pulled himself along to the stem. From the fork where the branch joined it, one could even climb to the top of the tree, though it was only once or twice he had done so, and then with his heart in his mouth.

The old elm is the thing," he thought to himself. If only we can get among the big limbs! No flood will dig the old tree up, even if it sweeps away the house.

But how about Izah and Jennie?"

This was the question. A boy could climb the tree well enough, though even for him, with that giddy water eddying and swirling underneath, it would be no pleasant job to climb along the branch. But for a little girl of six? She would grow dizzy and tumble, to a certainty. It was not a new sensation to him to pity a girl as a girl as a poor creature that couldn't climb a tree; but his pity now was of another kind altogether to that which he had felt before. In another moment his plan was worked out.

Wading across the kitchen floor, where the water now reached nearly to his knees, he gained the wood-shed, and there equipped himself with an old door, a clothes-line, a coil of thicker rope, and a pile of old boards that were stacked against the corner. Slipping the coils of rope over his neck, he shouldered the door and the boards, and waded back across the kitchen again.

At the top of the stairway his wailing for their father and mother.

sisters were now standing, dressed, and The boy tottered up with his burden.

Now look here, Izah and Jennie," he said; "the first thing of all is to stop crying. Pap's coming back, you bet, as soon as ever he can get a boat. I guess he'd ha' been here before now, only boats, you see, would nat'rally be rather hard to get, these times. But he's coming all right; and till he comes I'm goin' to look after this family. Now just you listen: you don't see a flood like this every day, and so we're goin' to get up on the big elm and build a house there, so's we can watch this thing properly-see it out, I mean. We'll be safe enough there. The water isn't going to say much to that tree; it's stood there hundreds and hundreds of years, and you don't think it's goin' to take much account of a flood-eh? So what you've got to do is to

bustle about and find something to eat up there.

if they can't look after the larder?"

What's the use of girls

With this, he pushed the old door and the loose boards out on the kitchen roof. His sisters, catching some of his courage, now began to hurry about and help. Making another descent to the kitchen, where by this time the water was waist-high, he managed to secure a smoked ham, some dried beef, and some loaves of bread. A second visit gave him a panful of dough-nuts and some more loaves. As he brought these safely up the stairs, he met

Izah and Jenny laden with a pile of blankets that they had pulled off the beds. Henry judged that this was enough in the way of provision.

He now helped his sisters out on to the flat roof, tied the clothesline about his waist, and climbed out along the branch to the trunk of the tree. It was dizzier work than he had ever found it before; and the rushing water, twenty feet below, seemed to tempt him to fall. But his heart was now nerved. He climbed up till he found a place where two stout branches forked out close beside each other, and then turned to his sisters.

Before starting he had told them carefully what they were to do; so now when he had uncoiled the rope from his waist and flung the end to them they at once caught it and securely tied it to the old door.

ON THE PLATFORM (p. 32).

The door was pulled up, the rope untied and again flung. One after another, in this way, the boards and the remaining coils of rope were hauled up by the boy. When this was done, he set to work laying the boards across the fork of the tree, parallel and close to one another, and fastening them at either end with his rope securely to the branches. At the end of twenty minutes he had rigged up thus a rough platform, about eight feet square, and quite large enough for them all to sit or lie upon.

It was now the turn of the food and the blankets, which were soon safe on the platform. But there still remained the gravest question of all. How was he to get his little sisters up to this giddy height?

He had kept the longest and strongest of the ropes with this purpose in