farm.
You ought to take something for your nerves."

I had a mental picture of John Quincy Forrest doing any manual labor
with an axe or spade. During our short acquaintance that had been put
to the test too often to admit of question; but I encouraged him to fly
right at the bank, assuring him that in case his tools became heated,
there was always water at hand to cool them. The wrangler had rustled
in the wagon-mules for our cook, and Forrest was still ridiculing my
anxiety to move, when a fusillade of shots was heard across and up the
river. Every man at both wagons was on his feet in an instant, not one
of us even dreaming that the firing of the boys on herd was a warning,
when Quince's horsewrangler galloped up and announced a flood-wave
coming down the river. A rush was made for our horses, and we struck for
the ford, dashing through the shallows and up the farther bank without
drawing rein. With a steady rush, a body of water, less than a mile
distant, greeted our vision, looking like the falls of some river,
rolling forward like an immense cylinder. We sat our horses in
bewilderment of the scene, though I had often heard Jim Flood describe
the sudden rise of streams which had mountain tributaries. Forrest and
his men crossed behind us, leaving but the cooks and a horse-wrangler on
the farther side. It was easily to be seen that all the lowlands along
the river would be inundated, so I sent Levering back with orders to
hook up the team and strike for tall timber. Following suit, Forrest
sent two men to rout the contingent of cattle out of a bend which was
nearly a mile below the wagons. The wave, apparently ten to twelve feet
high, moved forward slowly, great walls lopping off on the side and
flooding out over the bottoms, while on the farther shore every cranny
and arroyo claimed its fill from the avalanche of water. The cattle on
the south side were safe, grazing well back on the uplands, so we gave
the oncoming flood our undivided attention. It was traveling at the
rate of eight to ten miles an hour, not at a steady pace, but sometimes
almost halting when the bottoms absorbed its volume, only to catch its
breath and forge ahead again in angry impetuosity. As the water passed
us on the bluff bank, several waves broke over and washed around our
horses' feet, filling the wagon-way, but the main volume rolled across
the narrow valley on the opposite side. The wagons had pulled out
to higher ground, and while every