"h.e.l.lo, Harvey! If Miles couldn't get across, how can either of us go over?"

"Oh, I reckon the creek isn't much up yet," answered Harvey. "Miles is easily frightened."

So, on they rode, hoping for the best; but when they reached the creek they saw, to their dismay, that the water was much higher already than it usually rose in the summer-time. The low grounds on each side were overflowed, and nothing could be seen of the bridge but the tops of two upright timbers near its middle.

It was certainly very unfortunate that both the operators were on the same side of the stream!

"This is a pretty piece of business," cried Harry. "I didn't expect the creek to get up so quickly as this. I was down here yesterday, and it hadn't risen at all. I tell you, Harvey, you ought to live on the other side."

"Or else you ought," said Harvey.

"No," said Harry; "this is my station."

Harvey had no answer ready for this, but as they were hurriedly fastening Selim and the mule to trees near Lewston's cabin, he said:

"Perhaps Mr. Lyons may come down and work the other end of the line."

"He can't get off," said Harry. "He has his own office to attend to.

And, besides, that wouldn't do. We must work our own line, especially at the very beginning. It would look nice--now, wouldn't it?--to wait until Mr. Lyons could come over from Hetertown before we could commence operations!"

"Well, what can we do?" asked Harvey.

"Why, one of us must get across, somehow."

"I don't see how it's going to be done," said Harvey, as they ran down to the edge of the water. "I reckon we'll have to holler our messages across, as Tony said; only there isn't anybody to holler to."

"I don't know how it's to be done either," said Harry; "but one of us must get over, some way or other."

"Couldn't we wade to the bridge," asked Harvey, "and then walk over on it? I don't believe it's more than up to our waists on the bridge."

"You don't know how deep it is," said Harry; "and when you get to the bridge, ten to one more than half the planks have been floated off, and you'd go slump to the bottom of the creek before you knew it. There's no way but to get a boat."

"I don't know where you're going to find one," said Harvey. "There's a boat up at the mill-pond, but you couldn't get it out and down here in much less than a day."

"John Walker has his boat afloat again," said Harry, "but that's over on the other side. What a nuisance it is that there isn't anybody over there! If we didn't want 'em, there'd be about sixty or seventy darkies hanging about now."

"Oh, no!" said Harvey, "not so many as that; not over forty-seven."

"I'm going over to Lewston's. Perhaps he knows of a boat," said Harry; and away he ran.

But Lewston was not in his cabin, and so Harry hurried along a road in the woods that led by another negro cabin about a half-mile away, thinking that the old man had gone off in that direction. Every minute or two he shouted at the top of his voice, "Oh, Lewston!"

Very soon he heard some one shouting in reply, and he recognized Lewston's voice. It seemed to come from the creek.

Thereupon, Harry made his way through the trees and soon caught sight of the old colored man. He was in a boat, poling his way along in the shallow water as close to dry land as the woods allowed him, and sometimes, where the trees were wide apart, sending the boat right between some of their tall trunks.

"h.e.l.lo, Lewston," cried Harry, running as near as he could go without getting his shoes wet, for the water ran up quite a distance among the trees in some places. "What are you about? Where did you get that boat?

I want a boat."

"Dat's jist what I thought, Mah'sr Harry," said Lewston, still poling away as hard as he could. "I know de compuny'd want to git ober de creek, an' I jist went up to Hiram Anderson's and borrowed his ole boat.

Ise been a-bailing her out all de mornin'."

"You're a trump, Lewston," said Harry. "Pole her down opposite your house, and then one of us will go over. Why don't you go out farther?

You can't get along half as fast in here by the trees and hummocks as you could in deeper water."

"You don't ketch me out dar in dat runnin' water," said Lewston. "I'd be in the middle afore I knowed it, and dis pole's pooty short."

"Well, come along as fast as you can," cried Harry, "and I'll run down to your house and get your axe to cut a longer pole."

By the time Harry had found a tall young sapling, and had cut it down and trimmed it off, Lewston arrived with the boat.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CROSSING THE CREEK.

"Now, then," said Harry, "here's the boat and a good pole, and you've nothing to do, Harvey, but just to get in and push yourself over to your station as fast as you can."

But the situation did not seem to strike Harvey very favorably. He looked rather dissatisfied with the arrangement made for him.

"I can't swim," he said. "At least, not much, you know."

"Well, who wants you to swim?" said Harry, laughing. "That's a pretty joke. Are you thinking of swimming across, and towing the boat after you? You can push her over easy enough; that pole will reach the bottom anywhere."

"Dat's so," said old Lewston. "It'll touch de bottom ob de water, but I don't know 'bout de bottom ob de mud. Ye musn't push her down too deep.

Dar's 'bout as much mud as water out dar in de creek."

The more they talked about the matter, the greater became Harvey's disinclination to go over. He was not a coward, but he was not used to the water or the management of a boat, and the trip seemed much more difficult to him than it would have appeared to a boy accustomed to boating.

"I tell you what we'll do," cried Harry, at last. "You take my station, Harvey, and I'll go over and work your end of the line."

There was no opposition to this plan, and so Harry hurried off with Harvey to Lewston's cabin and helped him to make the connections and get the line in working order at that end, and then he ran down to the boat, jumped in, and Lewston pushed him off.

Harry poled the boat along quite easily through the shallow water, and when he got farther out he found that he proceeded with still greater ease, only he did not go straight across, but went a little too much down stream.

But he pushed out strongly toward the opposite sh.o.r.e, and soon reached the middle of the creek. Then he began to go down stream very fast indeed. Push and pole as he would, he seemed to have no control whatever over the boat. He had had no idea that the current would be so strong.

On he went, right down toward the bridge, and as the boat swept over it, one end struck an upright beam that projected above the water, and the clumsy craft was jerked around with such violence that Harry nearly tumbled into the creek.

He heard Lewston and Harvey shouting to him, but he paid no attention to them. He was working with all his strength to get the boat out of the current and into shallower water. But as he found that he was not able to do that, he made desperate efforts to stop the boat by thrusting his pole into the bottom. It was not easy to get the pole into the mud, the current was so strong; but he succeeded at last, by pushing it out in front of him, in forcing it into the bottom; and then, in a moment, it was jerked out of his hand, as the boat swept on, and, a second time, he came near tumbling overboard.

Now he was helpless. No, there was the short pole that Lewston had left in the boat.

He picked it up, but he could do nothing with it. If it had been an oar, now, it might have been of some use. He tried to pull up the seat, but it was nailed fast.

On he rapidly floated, down the middle of the stream; the boat sometimes sidewise, sometimes with one end foremost, and sometimes the other. Very soon he lost sight of Lewston and Harvey, and the last he saw of them they were hurrying by the edge of the water, in the woods. Now he sat down, and looked about him. The creek appeared to be getting wider and wider, and he thought that if he went on at that rate he must soon come to the river. The country seemed unfamiliar to him. He had never seen it, from the water, when it was overflowed in this way.