"Very well," said I, "St. Louis--yes."

Out past the old Trescott farm, now covered with factories, cottages,
and railway tracks, leaving Lynhurst Park off to our left, curving with
the turnings of Brushy Creek Valley, through which our engineers had
found such easy grades, dropping the straggling suburbs of the city
behind us, we flew along the rails in the waning twilight of this
grewsome day. On the windward windows and the roof rattled fierce
flights of sleet and showers of cinders from the engine. Occasionally we
felt the car sway in the howling gusts of wind, as we passed some
opening in the hills and neared the more level prairie. Stories of cars
blown from the rails flitted through my mind; and in contemplating such
an accident my thoughts busied themselves with the details of plans for
getting free from the wrecked car, and pushing on with the engine, the
derailing of which somehow never occurred to me.

"We're slowing down!" cried Jim, after a half-hour's run. "I wonder
what's the matter!"

"For God's sake, look ahead!" yelled Corcoran, leaping down from the
cupola and springing to the door. We followed him to the platform, and
each of us ran down on the step and, swinging out by the hand-rail,
peered ahead into the dusk, the sleet stinging our cheeks like shot.

We were running along the right bank of the stream, at a point where the
valley narrowed down to perhaps sixty rods of bottom. At the first dim
look before us we could see nothing unusual, except that the background
of the scene looked somehow as if lifted by a mirage. Then I noticed
that up the valley, instead of the ghostly suggestions of trees and
hills which bounded the vista in other directions, there was an
appearance like that seen on looking out to sea.

"The flood!" said Jim. "He's not going to stop, is he Corcoran?"

At this moment came at once the explanation of Schwartz's hesitation and
the answer to Jim's question. We saw, reaching clear across the narrow
bottom, a great wave of water, coming down the valley like a liquid
wall, stretching across the track and seeming to forbid our further
progress, while it advanced deliberately upon us, as if to drown engine
and crew. Driven on by the terrific gale, it boiled at its base, and
curled forward at its foamy and wind-whipped crest, as if the upper
waters were impatient of the slow speed of those below. Beyond the wave,
the valley, from bluff to bluff, was a sea, rolling white-capped wave