here must be persons who were
awake and as alert as he to the transformation the darkness had
wrought. Moreover, perhaps there was no actual danger, and should this
prove to be the case, how absurd he would feel to arouse people at
daybreak for a mere nothing. It was while he paused there indecisively
that a sight met his eye which spurred hesitancy to immediate action.
Around the bend far up the stream came sweeping a tangle of
wreckage--trees, and brush, and floating timber--and swirling along in
its wake was a small lean-to which he recognized as one that had stood
on the bank of the river at Melton, the village located five miles
above Freeman's Falls. If the water were high enough to carry away this
building, it must indeed have risen to a menacing height and there was
not a moment to be lost.

He rushed to the telephone and called up Mr. Clarence Fernald who
replied to his summons in irritable, half-dazed fashion.

"Is there any way of lifting the water gates at the mills?" asked Ted
breathlessly. "The river has risen so high that it is sweeping away
trees and even some of the smaller houses from the Melton shore. If the
debris piles up against the dam, the pressure may be more than the
thing can stand. Besides, the water will spread and flood both
Aldercliffe and Pine Lea. I thought I'd better tell you."

Mr. Fernald was not dazed now; he was broad awake.

"Where are you?" inquired he sharply.

"At the shack, sir. The water is ankle deep."

"Don't stay there another moment. It is not safe. At any instant the
whole hut may be carried away. Gather your traps together and call
Wharton or Stevens--or both of them--to come and help you take them up
to Aldercliffe. I'll attend to notifying the mills. You've done us a
good turn, my boy."

During the next hour Ted himself was too busy to appreciate the hectic
rush of events that he had set moving, or realize the feverish energy
with which the Fernalds and their employees worked to avert a tragedy
which, but for his warning, might have been a very terrible one. The
mills were reached by wire and the sluices at the sides of the central
dam immediately lifted to make way for the torrent of snow, ice,
wreckage, and water. In what a fierce and maddened chaos it surged over
the falls and dashed into the chasm beneath! All day the mighty current
boiled and seethed, overflowing the outlying fields with its yellow
flood. Nevertheless, the great brick factories that border