"So do I," answered Joe. "My! but I'm sick of the sound of rain!"
The little boy, in the bunk near Blake, awakened, either from hearing the talk, or from the noise of the storm.
"I'm hungry! I want my mamma!" he called.
"I'll get you something to eat," said Blake, kindly, "and maybe mamma will come in the morning."
He got up, and made some cracker and jam sandwiches for Charlie, who munched them contentedly, and went to sleep again.
Blake then opened the cabin door, and looked out.
"How is it?" asked Joe.
"Pretty fierce!" murmured Blake, as he crept back to his bunk. "Pretty fierce. It's a raging torrent out there."
Morning brought no cessation of the rain, though it was not coming down quite so hard after the dreary dawn broke. As our friends sat down to breakfast, they could see the alarmed villagers working frantically at the levee. For the rising waters were already lapping the top of it.
Long lines of men, carrying bags and baskets of dirt and stones, piled them along the bank—
