ht which, while it delighted us, at the same time gave us something
of a start.

"Joe!" I cried. "How about our bridge?"

"Pht!" Joe whistled. "I never thought of it. It will go out, I'm afraid.
Let us get down there at once."

Off we ran to where our horse was standing, eating hay out of the back
of the buckboard, threw on the harness, hitched him up, and scrambling
in, one on either side, away we went as fast as we dared over the
uneven, rocky stretch of the mesa which lay between us and home.

The course of the stream being more circuitous than the one we took
across country, we beat the water down to the ranch; but only by a few
seconds. We had hardly reached the bridge when the swollen stream leaped
into the pool in such volume that I felt convinced it would sweep it
clear of all the sand in it whether black or yellow; rushed under the
bridge, and went tearing down the valley--a sight to see! Luckily the
creek-bed was fairly wide and straight, so that the banks did not suffer
much.

As to the bridge, the stringers being very long and well set, and the
floor being composed of stout poles roughly squared and firmly spiked
down, it did not go out, though the water came squirting up between the
poles in a way which made us fear it might tear them loose at any
moment.

To prevent this, we ran quickly to the stable, harnessed up the mules to
the wood-sled, loaded the sled with some of our big flat lava-rocks, and
driving back to the bridge, we laid these rocks upon the ends of the
poles, leaving a causeway between them wide enough for the passage of a
wagon.

We had just finished this piece of work, when we heard a rattle of
wheels, and looking up the road we saw coming down the hill an
express-wagon, driven by Sam Tobin, a San Remo liveryman, and in the
wagon sat my father and mother.

"Why, what's all this?" cried the former, as the driver pulled up on the
far side of the bridge. "Where does all this water come from?"

Then did the pent-up excitement of the past week burst forth. The flood
of water going under the bridge was a trifle compared with the flood of
words we poured out upon my bewildered parents; both of us talking at
the same time, interrupting each other at every turn, explaining each
other's explanations, and tumbling over each other, as it were, in our
eagerness. All the details of the strenuous days since the snow-slide
came down--the discovery of the Big Reuben, the recovery of the stolen
o