ectly good
lanterns, and what grub we didn't eat," asserted Nort.

"But something else may happen," said Bud in a low voice, as, once
more, he leaned forward, and again held the lantern over the edge of
the rocky ledge.

"What?" Dick wanted to know.

"Look," was what Bud replied. And his cousins, glancing down, saw that
the waters were rising, rising, rising!

When would they stop?

CHAPTER XIII

WHERE DID IT GO?

Pressing back toward the rocky ledge, against which they leaned, gazing
with fearsome eyes at the rising waters, on which the lantern-light
shone fitfully, and almost holding their breaths at times, so great was
the strain, the boy ranchers waited--for what they scarcely knew. And
yet they did, in a measure.

For they waited to see if the waters would stop rising, a happening, as
they well knew, which, alone, could save their lives.

As one of them had remarked, they might have to swim for it. But,
looking at the foaming current, dashing along over jagged rocks on
which the boys had more than once stumbled, they knew what a risk that
effort to escape would bring.

And should the water fill the whole tunnel they would have no earthly
chance!

For only a fish can exist in a hose or pipe completely filled with
water, and that is what the tunnel would become if the water rose to
the roof--merely a great, underground rocky pipe for the conveying of
the liquid from Pocut River.

So you can easily imagine with what anxiety Bud, Nort and Dick watched
the rising water. Every now and again one of them would lean over the
ledge, swinging the lantern to and fro, so its gleams would be
reflected in the hurrying, foaming stream, and indicate how fast it was
rising.

At first the rate of rise had been rapid. But as the boys, again and
again, made observations in the semi-gloom Bud, at length, uttered a
joyful cry.

"Look!" he shouted, pointing with trembling finger at the foamy flood
close, now, to the top of the ledge. "Look!"

"What--a big fish?" asked Dick.

"Fish nothing!" retorted his cousin. "But the water is going down!
Look, it isn't as high as it was. I can see a wet mark where it came
up to, and it's two inches below that now! The flood is going down!"

"Are you sure?" asked Nort, eagerly.

"Look for yourselves!" invited Bud, handing over the lantern.

Nort's observation was confirmatory of his cousin's.

"She _is_ going down!" remarked Nort. "And just in time, too!"

H