dest of American highways.

And the great restless river needed watching. It was as full of
mischievous pranks as a youthful giant experimenting with his new-found
strength. It thought nothing of biting out a few hundred acres of land
from one bank and depositing them miles below on the other. If these
acres were occupied by houses or cultivated fields, so much the more
fun for the river. For years it would flow peacefully in a well-known
channel around some great bend, then decide to make a change, and in a
single night cut a new channel straight across the loop of land. By
such a prank not only were all the river pilots thoroughly bewildered,
but a large slice of one State, with its inhabitants and buildings,
would be transferred to another. If at the same time an important
river-town could be stranded and left far inland, the happiness of the
mischief-making giant was complete; and for many miles it would swirl
and eddy and boil and ripple with exuberant glee over the success of
its efforts.

Above all it delighted in secretly gathering to itself from tributary
streams their vast accumulations of protracted rains or melting snows,
until it was swollen to twice its ordinary size, and endowed with a
strength that nothing could withstand. Then with mighty leaps it would
overflow its banks, cover whole counties with its tawny floods, burst
through levees, and riot over thousands of cultivated fields, sweep
away houses, uproot trees, and drown every unfortunate creature on
which it could lay its clutching fingers. Whenever its fleeing victims
managed to reach some little mound or bit of high land that it could
not climb, then it found equal pleasure in surrounding them and mocking
them with its plashing chuckles, while they suffered the pangs of slow
starvation.

At these times of overflow not only the snag-boats but such other craft
as could be pressed into the service were despatched in every direction
to the relief of the river giant's victims. While on this duty they
carried provisions, clothing, and other necessaries of life into the
most remote districts; effected rescues from floating houses, or those
whose roofs alone rose above the flood and afforded uncertain refuge
for their inmates; removed human beings and live-stock from little
muddy islands miles away from the main channel of the river, carried
them miles farther before reaching places of safety, and in every way
strove with all their might to m