d.

All of a sudden he reached in through the wet bushes and pulled
something out. "Look at that," he said.

It was a sort of a little college pennant on a stick.

"Those fellows went to Catskill didn't they?" Bert asked me, kind of
quick.

I told him, "Yes, I thought so."

"Lucky for them," he said, "that's off their tent. Come on, hurry up."

We didn't try to go through the old creek bottom, but even alongside it
we began coming to big puddles, and pretty soon we were wading through
water up to our waists. Even a hundred feet away from it, the land was
like a lake and we just plodded and stumbled through water. I knew now
that the rain itself could never have done that. Pretty soon we must
have got over into the old creek bed, because we stumbled and went
kerflop in, and the next thing we knew, we were swimming.

"Let's get out of this, but try to keep near it," Bert said, "so we'll
know where we're going. This has got me rattled. I don't know what's
happened or where we're at. I don't even know if we're north or south
of the creek bed."

It was pretty hard keeping near the hollow, because all the land was
flooded and we had to feel each step. But if we got away from it, _good
night,_ we didn't know where we might end. Only the trouble was, it
kept getting worse and worse the farther we went, and it nearly toppled
us over backwards, it was flowing so strong.

Pretty soon Bert stopped and said, "Listen."

We were both standing in the water up to our waists, and I was
shivering, it was so cold.

"Do you hear the sound of water rushing?" he asked me.

I listened and heard a sound far off like a water fall.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Search _me_," Bert answered, "but we're in bad here. Let's head for
the mountains."

Now I didn't know what had happened, except that the whole country was
under water. When it comes to the lay of the land I can usually tell
where I'm at, but when it comes to the lay of the water, _good night_.
And believe me, there's nothing that changes the looks of things like
water.

"I think those are the mountains that make Nick's Valley," I said;
"let's try to get over that way."

"There's a waterfall coming down out of a crevice between them," Bert
said; "I know what's happened, the valley is flooded."

You see we were in the low fields west of those mountains. I can't tell
you just where, but somewhere. There were hollows in the fields so
sometimes we were walking and sometimes