the g-g-good old g-g-ground under my f-f-feet again. I never thought
it could be so n-nice as it seems right now."

"You never miss the water till the well runs dry!" chanted Bandy-legs,
now getting over his fit of depression, and beginning to pluck up new
courage and spirits.

"We are whooping it up at a mile a minute clip, ain't we, Max?" Steve
asked, a short time later.

"Well, I'd hardly like to say that, Steve," answered the other; "but
we're certainly making pretty swift time, twenty miles an hour, perhaps
nearer thirty, I'd say. And that's going some, considering that we
haven't any motor to push us along."

"And didn't they tell me it was about twenty miles down the valley that
Asa French lived?" Steve went on to say, showing that even in the
dreadful grip of the flood he had remembered that Bessie French was
somewhere down below, and possibly also exposed to the perils that
threatened all who lived along the banks of the furious Evergreen River.

Max too had given more than a few thoughts to this fact during the
earlier part of that eventful day.

"The way we're going," he told Steve, "we ought to be down there before
a great while; and let's hope we'll strike luck, and get a chance to go
ashore."

"And also find the girls all right," added Steve, who had apparently
quite forgotten how Bessie had recently cut him cruelly, while
suffering from an unfortunate misunderstanding.

"But what ails Toby there; he seems to be excited over something?" Max
went on to exclaim; for Toby was bending forward, and showed plain
evidences of growing interest.

"Hey! fellers!" he now burst out with, "just looky there, will you?
We're in for a f-f-fresh lot of t-t-trouble seems like. W-w-watch him
p-p-pop up again, would you? Whew! but he's a b-b-bouncer, too,
biggest I ever saw in my born days, and must be twenty feet long. Max,
it's a s-s-sure enough s-s-sea serpent, ain't it, now?"

CHAPTER VII

THE SUBMERGED FARM-HOUSE

"Gee whiz! where is it, Toby?" cried Steve. "And none of us got a gun
along, worse luck. Hey, show me the sea serpent, and p'raps my camera
ain't so wet but what I might crack off a picture of the same; because
nobody's ever going to believe you when you tell that yarn. Show me,
Toby!"

Toby was only too willing to comply. He had always had a decided
weakness for collecting all sorts of wild animals, and that might
explain why he displayed such extraordinary excitement now.

"