when the stampede
came." The girl raised her face and wiped the tears from it. "It
doesn't seem possible anybody would be so careless as to smoke near a
well that was coming in, but--Just think, Mr. Gray, those drill stems
shut it off! Why, it was the hand of God!"

"It seems so. My luck hasn't run out, that's plain." The speaker
pondered briefly, then he said: "Shut in! Safe! Jove, it's wonderful!
Buddy can take me to the railroad to-night and--"

"Oh, you can't leave. You're not able."

"I must. This gasser was a great disappointment to me. I allowed myself
to count on a big well, and now I have a serious problem to meet. It
must be met without delay. Buddy will soon be back, I dare say?" Allie
undertook to evade the speaker's eye, but unsuccessfully, and he
inquired, sharply: "What's wrong? What's happened to him?"

"Nothing. He's all right, but"--Gray's evident alarm demanded the
truth, therefore she explained--"but I don't know when he'll be back.
That's why I've been so frightened. It has been raining cats and dogs;
the creek has overflowed and everything is under water."

"Under water? Here? Why, that can't be." Gray insisted upon rising, and
Allie finally consented to his doing so; then, despite his protest that
he was quite able to take care of himself, she helped him to the
window. From that position he beheld a surprising scene.

The Briskow farm lay in a flat, saucerlike valley, arid and dusty at
most seasons of the year, but now a shallow lake, the surface of which
was broken by occasional fences, misty clumps of bushes, or the tops of
dead weeds. The nearest Briskow derrick was dimly visible, its floor
awash, its shape suggestive of the battle mast of a sunken man-of-war.

"It's not more than a foot or two deep on the level," Allie explained,
"but that's enough. And it has come up six inches since Buddy left.
He'd have been back before this if he could have made it."

"Did you ever see it like this before?"

"Once, when I was a little girl. Some years the creek never has a drop
in it."

"Then we're marooned."

"We were cut off for three days that time."

Gray frowned. What next? he asked himself. Here was a calamity that
could not be dodged. He shrugged, finally. "No use to fret. No use to
crouch beneath a load. I'd give my right arm to be back in Dallas,
but--this is our chance to cultivate the Christian virtue of
submission. So be it! One must have a heart for every fate, but," he
smiled