ed them. He would have seen the thin streams that silently,
but steadily and in ever-increasing volume, were working their way
through the embankment near its base. In the inky blackness of the
night they were unheeded; and while spade and pick were plied with
unflagging zeal to strengthen the higher portions, these insidious foes
were equally busy undermining its foundations.

Shortly before midnight everything seemed so secure that the boys were
sent to the _Venture's_ "shanty" to get a few hours of sleep. Then
Billy Brackett and Mr. Manton came in for the hot coffee Solon was
preparing for them. They had hardly seated themselves at the table
when the catastrophe occurred. Without warning, a quarter of a mile of
the water-soaked levee sank out of sight, and dissolved like so much
wet sugar. Into the huge gap thus opened the exulting waters leaped
with the rush and roar of a cataract. On the foaming crest of this
tawny flood the stout timber raft was borne and whirled like an autumn
leaf. A few of the working gang managed to reach it and save
themselves, but others were swept away like thistle-down.

The boys thus rudely awakened from a sound sleep sprang up with
frightened questionings, while Solon sank to his knees, paralyzed with
terror. Nanita stood guard over her puppy, while Bim, with a single
bark of defiance, leaped to his master's side and looked into his face
for orders.

"Steady, boys! Steady!" shouted Billy Brackett, as coolly as though
nothing unusual were happening. "No, not outside. Keep that door
closed. It is safer in here. We can do nothing but wait patiently
until the raft fetches up against something solid or grounds. Hear the
waves boiling over the deck? There's a big chance of being swept off
and dashed to bits out there."

For five minutes the raft was hurled forward and tossed with sickening
plunges, as though in a heavy seaway, until its occupants were nearly
prostrated with nausea. Then came a crash and a shock that piled them
in headlong confusion on one side of the room. There was a grinding
and groaning of timbers. One side of the raft was lifted, and the
other forced down, until the floor of the "shanty" sloped steeply.
With a single impulse all hands rushed to the door and into the open
air.

The raft seemed to be stranded at the base of a rocky cliff that
towered directly above it to an unknown height. Against it the mad
waters were dashing savagely. Beneath th