orld, the pot-hunter knows
not one soul who is on his side; not one whom he dare let see his face
or come between him and a hiding-place. The water is rising fast. He
dare not guess how high it will come; but rise as it may, linger at
its height as it may, he will not be driven out. In his belief a
hundred men are ready, at every possible point where his foot could
overstep the line of this vast inundation, to seize him and drag him
to the gallows. Ah, the gallows! Not being dead--not God's anger--not
eternal burnings; but simply facing death! The gallows! The tree above
his head--the rope around his neck--the signal about to be spoken--the
one wild moment after it! These keep him here.

He has taken down sail and mast. The rushes are twelve feet high. They
hide him well. With oars, mast, and the like, he has contrived
something by which he can look out over their tops. He has powder and
shot, coffee, salt, and rice; he will not be driven out! At night he
spreads his sail and seeks the open waters of the lake, where he can
sleep, by littles, without being overrun by serpents; but when day
breaks, there is no visible sign of his presence. Yet he is where he
can see his cabin. It is now deep in the water, and the flood is still
rising. He is quite sure no one has entered it since he left it.
But--the strain of perpetual watching!

When at dawn of the fifth day he again looked for cover in the
prairie, the water was too high to allow him concealment, and he
sought the screen of some willows that fringed the edge of the swamp
forest, anchoring in a few rods' width of open water between them and
the woods. He did not fear to make, on the small hearth of mud and
ashes he had improvised in his lugger, the meagre fire needed to
prepare his food. Its slender smoke quickly mingled with the hazy
vapors and shadows of the swamp. As he cast his eye abroad, he found
nowhere any sign of human approach. Here and there the tops of the
round rushes still stood three feet above the water, but their slender
needles were scarcely noticeable. Far and near, over prairie as over
lake, lay the unbroken yellow flood. There was no flutter of wings, no
whistle of feathered mate to mate, no call of nestlings from the
ruined nests. Except the hawk and vulture, the birds were gone. Untold
thousands of dumb creatures had clung to life for a time, but now were
devoured by birds of prey and by alligators, or were drowned.
Thousands still lived on. Beh