n overflow, but the whole rushing river
magnified and repeated a thousand times, which, even as he gasped for
breath and clung to the roof, was bearing him away he knew not whither.
But it was bearing him away upon its center, for as he cast one swift
glance toward his meadows he saw they were covered by the same sweeping
torrent, dotted with his sailing hayricks and reaching to the wooded
foothills. It was the great flood of '54. In its awe-inspiring
completeness it might have seemed to him the primeval Deluge.

As his frail raft swept under a cottonwood he caught at one of the
overhanging limbs, and, working his way desperately along the bough, at
last reached a secure position in the fork of the tree. Here he was for
the moment safe. But the devastation viewed from this height was only
the more appalling. Every sign of his clearing, all evidence of his past
year's industry, had disappeared. He was now conscious for the first
time of the lowing of the few cattle he had kept as, huddled together
on a slight eminence, they one by one slipped over struggling into the
flood. The shining bodies of his dead horses rolled by him as he gazed.
The lower-lying limbs of the sycamore near him were bending with the
burden of the lighter articles from his overturned wagon and cabin which
they had caught and retained, and a rake was securely lodged in a bough.
The habitual solitude of his locality was now strangely invaded by
drifting sheds, agricultural implements, and fence rails from unknown
and remote neighbors, and he could faintly hear the far-off calling
of some unhappy farmer adrift upon a spar of his wrecked and shattered
house. When day broke he was cold and hungry.

Hours passed in hopeless monotony, with no slackening or diminution of
the waters. Even the drifts became less, and a vacant sea at last spread
before him on which nothing moved. An awful silence impressed him. In
the afternoon rain again began to fall on this gray, nebulous expanse,
until the whole world seemed made of aqueous vapor. He had but one idea
now--the coming of the evening boat, and he would reserve his strength
to swim to it. He did not know until later that it could no longer
follow the old channel of the river, and passed far beyond his sight and
hearing. With his disappointment and exposure that night came a return
of his old fever. His limbs were alternately racked with pain or
benumbed and lifeless. He could scarcely retain his position--at t