ch for
thinking of our father and Sam Dawes. We resolved as early as we could
see in the morning to go back to them. We were awoke early in the
morning by a peculiar murmuring and hollow sound. As soon as it was
daylight we looked out over the flooded country.

We asked others if they had heard the noise. They replied that they
had, and that it was caused by the water rushing over the land. "Then
the flood must have increased," exclaimed Malcolm and I with anxiety.

"No doubt about it, boys," was the unsatisfactory reply.

We were for starting off immediately, but one of the farmer's wives, to
whom we had given up our tent, insisted on preparing some breakfast for
us, and in putting a supply of food into our canoe.

"It is a long voyage, my boys, and you do not know what you may require
before you return," she observed.

We paddled on very anxiously. We had only the line of eastern hills we
were leaving and some high land to the south to guide us, but we thought
that we could not help hitting upon the spot where our abode stood. For
a long way we paddled on easily enough, only taking care not to run
against stumps of trees, and as we got nearer the settlement, stakes or
ruined buildings were our chief danger. Too many evidences met us on
either side that the water had increased considerably since the previous
day. In vain our eyes ranged around, in no direction was our cottage
visible. We must have mistaken the locality. The current was here very
strong, we thought that we might have drifted down further than we had
calculated on doing. We went further west, and then steered south,
where the current was less strong. After going some way, Malcolm
stopped paddling suddenly, and exclaimed--

"Look, Harry! look there! Do you know that tree?"

"Its head is very like one that grows close to the house," I answered.

We had both mechanically turned the head of the canoe in the direction
in which he pointed. We had been engaged in fastening a flag-staff to
the tree near our house. A minute would decide whether this was it.
Our hearts sank within us, our paddles almost dropped from our hands,
when we perceived among the bare branches the rope and the pole which we
had been about to erect. Where was our cottage? where our kind father
and the faithful Sam? Not a vestige of the cottage remained, it had too
evidently been carried away by the flood.

"Had they been able to escape with the cattle?" was the qu