we were swimming. It was the
outside of the mountains that we saw, as you might say; I mean the side
away from the valley, so the water coming out through a cleft proved
that the water must be pretty high inside--I mean in Nick's Valley. I
guess you'll see what I mean if you'll look at the map.

But, believe me, it wasn't easy to get to those mountains. Seeing them
was one thing and getting to them was another. We just plodded around,
stumbling off little hills that were under water and we didn't seem to
get anywhere. After a while we came out on higher land where there
wasn't much water except puddles.

"Some cruise, hey?" I said.

"Shh, listen!" Bert said. "You can hear it plainer now. Look over
there."

Now as near as I can tell you we must have been standing near the north
side of the old creek bottom and we must have been pretty close to the
old silo, or whatever you call it, but we didn't know that then.
Believe _me_, we didn't know anything, except that we were wet. We were
standing on a little sort of a hill and the water was washing up almost
to our feet. Besides it was getting dark.

But anyway, this is what we saw, and if you just make believe that
you're standing on a little hill near that old pit and looking south
toward Black Lake, you'll see just what we saw--as you might say. We
saw the water just pouring through Nick's Valley and coming toward us
and going pell-mell into the old creek bed. Now that's the best way I
can tell it to you. I guess the little hill we were on acted kind of
like a back stop maybe (anyway, that's what Bert said) because the
water only beat against it and then went tumbling back into the creek
bed and down toward the Hudson. It was down that way that it overflowed
mostly and flooded the fields we had been plodding through.

"One thing, we had a grandstand view," I said.

And believe me, that was true. The water just came pouring and rushing
between those mountains, and sometimes we could see trees, and things
we thought might be parts of houses coming along. One big white thing
we saw, and we knew it was a tent. Black Lake was coming out to meet us
through Nick's Valley.

CHAPTER XXIX

TELLS ABOUT HOW WE LOOKED INTO THE PIT

I never saw anything like that before and it--it didn't exactly scare
me--but it made me feel sort of funny. It gave me the creeps to see
right in front of me like that, how lakes and valleys and all the land
could be changed and me standing