that! Indeed, Torry said afterward
that he forgot to shut his mouth until his jaws were positively stiff.

Their fright did not deprive them of action, however; everybody
immediately did something.

Inside the door, in the hall, hung the bell rope. The bell swung in the
cupola on the roof of the office building. The guard dropped his rifle
and sprang to seize this rope. He slipped his foot in the loop and began
to toll the bell as hard as he could.

"I'll get Central and tell them what's up!" gasped Mr. Santley, and
turned to run back into his office to spread the news of the catastrophe
by telephone.

Whistler plunged into the car, yelling to Torry:

"Turn around! Turn around! Down the valley road to warn 'em! Get a move
on, boy!"

His chum was already starting the car. It wheeled perilously in a sharp
curve, and with honking horn hurtled down the road which followed the
course of the river.

Without doubt the wall of the dam had been burst through by the
explosion. The immense mass of waiter held in leash would immediately
pour through the opening. The valley would be flooded!

As the car plunged across the main street of Elmvale people were running
out of their houses and out of the stores, shrieking that the dam had
burst. They began to stream away toward the higher ground, stopping for
none of their possessions. If they saved their lives they would be
fortunate.

Torry speeded up the car until she vibrated like a motor boat--like the
submarine chaser, No. 888! They whirled along the half-lit road, the
horn sounding its raucous warning, and the boys shrieking themselves
hoarse.

People came to their doors and windows The flying Navy boys pointed
behind them, repeating:

"The flood! The flood!"

The roar of the bursting dam was now in the ears of all the awakened
people of the valley. In three great explosions the weakened wall burst,
and the water roared through.

Spouting through the wrecked masonry, the boys could see it spread below
the barrier, half as high as the dam itself. It would sweep the narrow
valley clean of every small structure and of every living thing that
could not get out of its path.

Half a mile was small leeway; the flood would pour down upon the village
and the mills in two or three minutes. But the Navy boys in the big car
were flying over the road at a forty-mile-an-hour pace.

They could have easily escaped to the high ground on one side or the
other of the valley. The