iked to acknowledge; and nobody but Yank much liked the
idea of again entering that bloodstained abode.

"We'd drown getting there," said Cal at last. "I move some of you
fellows with two good arms rustle out and fix that ditch." He laughed.
"Nothing like having a hole in you to get out of work."

We took his advice, and managed to turn the flood, though we got very
wet in the process.

Then we returned to the tent, changed our clothes, crept into our
blankets, and wrapped ourselves close. The spot brushed by Johnny's head
dripped steadily. Otherwise our roof shed well. The rain roared straight
down with steady, deadly persistency.

"She can't keep this up long, anyway; that's a comfort," muttered Johnny
sleepily.

Couldn't she? All next morning that flood came down without the let-up
of even a single moment. It had all the volume and violence of a black
thunderstorm at its height; only the worst of the thunderstorm lasts but
a few moments, while this showed no signs of ever intending to end. Our
stout canvas continued to turn the worst of it, but a fine spray was
driven through, to our great discomfort. We did not even attempt to
build a fire, but sat around wrapped in our damp blankets.

Until about two of the afternoon the deluge continued. Our unique topic
of conversation was the marvel of how it could keep it up! We could not
imagine more water falling were every stream and lake in the mountains
to be lifted to the heavens and poured down again.

"Where the devil does it all come from?" marvelled Old, again and again.
"Don't seem like no resevoy, let alone clouds, could hold so much!"

"And where does it go to?" I supplemented.

"I reckon some of those plains people could tell you," surmised Yank
shrewdly.

At two o'clock the downpour ceased as abruptly as though it had been
turned off at a spigot. Inside of twenty minutes the clouds had broken,
to show beyond them a dazzling blue sky. Intermittent flashes and bands
of sunlight glittered on the wet trees and bushes or threw into relief
the black bands of storm clouds near the horizon.

Immensely cheered, we threw aside our soggy blankets and sallied forth.

"Great Christmas!" cried Johnny, who was in the advance. "Talk about
your mud!"

We did talk about it. It was the deepest, most tenacious, slipperiest,
most adhesive mud any fiend ever imagined. We slid and floundered as
though we had on skates; we accumulated balls of it underfoot; and we
sank d