ranch-wagon that Dicksie had sent and started for the Crawling Stone.
The confusion along the river road as the wagon approached the ranch
showed Marion the seriousness of the situation. Settlers driven from
their homes in the upper valley formed almost a procession of
misery-stricken people, making their way on horseback, on foot, and in
wagons toward Medicine Bend. With them they were bringing all they had
saved from the flood--the little bunch of cows, the wagonload of hogs,
the household effects, the ponies--as if war or pestilence had struck
the valley.

At noon Marion arrived. The ranch-house was deserted, and the men were
all at the river. Puss stuck her head out of the kitchen window, and
Dicksie ran out and threw herself into Marion's arms. Late news from
the front had been the worst: the cutting above Mud Lake had weakened
the last barrier that held off the river, and every available man was
fighting the current at that point.

Marion heard it all while eating a luncheon. Dicksie, beset with
anxiety, could not stay in the house. The man that had driven Marion
over, saddled horses in the afternoon and the two women rode up above
Mud Lake, now become through rainfall and seepage from the river a
long, shallow lagoon. For an hour they watched the shovelling and
carrying of sandbags, and rode toward the river to the very edge of
the disappearing willows, where the bank was melting away before the
undercut of the resistless current. They rode away with a common
feeling--a conviction that the fight was a losing one, and that
another day would see the ruin complete.

"Dicksie," exclaimed Marion--they were riding to the house as she
spoke--"I'll tell you what we _can_ do!" She hesitated a moment. "I
will tell you what we _can_ do! Are you plucky?"

Dicksie looked at Marion pathetically.

"If you are plucky enough to do it, we can keep the river off yet. I
have an idea. I will go, but you must come along."

"Marion, what do you mean? Don't you think I would go anywhere to save
the ranch? I should like to know where you dare go in this country
that I dare not!"

"Then ride with me over to the railroad camp by the new bridge. We
will ask Mr. McCloud to bring some of his men over. He can stop the
river; he knows how."

Dicksie caught her breath. "Oh, Marion! that would do no good, even if
I could do it. Why, the railroad has been all swept away in the lower
valley."

"How do you know?"

"So every one says.