branch in which they sat. Higher and higher they got.

"When is it going to stop?" cried Reggy. "Harry, do you think this is
such a flood as that which drowned all mankind except Noah's family?"

"I'm very sure it is not," answered Harry. "God promised never to send
such another, and put His bow in the clouds as a token. I have heard of
many such floods in this country, though this, to be sure, is higher
than any we have known, and I cannot account for it; but I have not the
slightest doubt that it will stop before long, though no doubt it will
have done a great deal of damage. That cannot be helped. It might have
come on at night, and we might all have been washed away before we knew
where we were, or fifty other things might have happened. We have
reason to be thankful, as matters might have been worse."

"I don't see how that could be," cried Hector. "To have to take refuge
in a tall tree, cut off from all help, without anything to eat or drink,
is as bad as one can well conceive."

"Come, come, don't grumble; it never makes a person happy, though it is
said there are some fellows who are never happy unless they are
grumbling, but I don't believe that."

"But if the flood does not subside before night, where are we to sleep?"
asked Hector.

"Why, up in the boughs, like birds or 'possums, to be sure," answered
Harry. "By-the-bye, we may find a 'possum, and he may serve us for
supper."

"But how can we get a fire to cook him?" inquired Reggy with a slight
suspicion that Harry was quizzing his brother.

"Oh, as to that, we must eat him raw; but many a sailor, wrecked on a
desert island, has had to live on worse fare," said Harry.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wish we had never come out to this horrible
country. We shall be starved, to a certainty," moaned Hector; "I'm
desperately hungry already."

"Are you? Poor fellow! then you will have to come to 'possum, or have
to eat a tree-lizard, or our friend the laughing jackass, or her eggs,
if she happen to have a nest in this tree. We must set off on a voyage
of discovery directly."

"I wonder you can joke, placed in so fearful a position as we are," said
Hector, in an angry tone.

"What would be the use of moaning and sighing, I should like to know?"
asked Harry. "I always like to make the best of things. The flood
won't last for ever. It is sure to go down in two or three days or a
week at the most, and in the meantime we must make ourselves comf