the night in camp; it would be good for her and the girls would
like it too."

The old woman had seen their approach. She looked anything but happy,
and Max really began to believe that the poor soul stood in danger of
losing all she owned in the wide world, if her little cabin went out
with the flood.

"How do you do, ma'm?" he said, cheerily, as he and his chum came up.
"We're all from the town of Carson. The bridge went out, and we were
on it at the time. It carried five of us down to where the French
farm-house was standing, half under water, and there we found three
girls on the roof, two of them friends of ours from town. A boat
happened to drift within reach, and we have come ashore. But as Asa
French's little daughter, Mabel, is lame and weak the chances are we'll
have to camp in the woods for the night, and go for help in the
morning. Now, wouldn't you like to join us to-night, because it'll be
a lonely time for you here, and it may start in and rain again? We
want to get something to eat the worst kind, and have money to buy
whatever you happen to have handy, chickens, ham, potatoes or anything
at all. The girls are nearly starved they say. Now how about it,
ma'm?"

The little old woman had listened to him talking with a sparkle of
interest in her eyes. Apparently she admired the lad from the very
start. Bandy-legs was hardly prepossessing enough to hope to make a
favorable impression on a stranger at first sight; you had to know the
boy with the crooked legs in order to appreciate his good qualities;
but Max won friends by the score even before they understood how clever
he could be.

"You're perfectly welcome to anything you can find in my cabin,
providing that you can get out there, and secure it," the little old
woman told them. "Perhaps you might manage with the aid of the boat.
And I believe I'll accept your kind invitation to accompany you back to
your camp. I'm accustomed to being by myself, but inside a house, not
out in the open woods, and on the brink of a dreadful flood. So
consider it a bargain, son. Show me the way to get there, and after
that it may pay you to bring your boat up so as to reach my little
house out there surrounded by water."

CHAPTER XII

THE WILD DOG PACK

This prospect pleased the two boys very much. Max believed that they
could manage to drag the boat up along the shore, and then scull out to
where the house stood, surrounded by water.

Accord