Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 79: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Flood 61 warning roar above which hung a whispering hiss of mad.waters, swept down from the north. “Run!” yelled Bain. get!” | “Boss, I can’t leave ’em heah to drown,” whined the black boy. ‘This is Ol’ Tony an’ OP Joe.” “It’s them or you—run!”’ He flung the driver bodily back from the mules. Water swirled up to their knees as they sprang for the mound. The frantic team snapped their hitch ropes, and en- cumbered by clanking gear, splashed after the other animals, floundering belly-deep in the rising flood. Between the moment Bain had tossed his chicken bone at the turtles and the one in which he and Robert, dripping and pant- ing, Houndered up the mound’s slope, pos- sibly twenty minutes had passed. In that time the great saucer of Laconia Circle had been filled with chocolate-colored water to an average depth of fifteen feet. Indian Mound outward in any direction, water shut the wood cutters in. As the crow flies it was seven and a half miles to any dry land other than that upon which they stood. They were dazed as men are who have beheld a miracle of destruction come on the wing of an instant and who have missed death by seconds. “Tt won’t come much higher, boys; she’s busted through that new Bee Bayou fill. It’ll back up a little more, but not much.” The manager spoke evenly, in his usual impersonal tone. His manner heartened the negroes as nothing else could. “Lawdy, Lawdy!” exclaimed Uncle John Key. “Jes’ think where we’d ’a’ been if we hadn’t ’a’ been nigh dis heah mount!’’ The old man, a hardwood timberman of fifty years’ experience, let his eyes wander over the murky water in which the giant red gums and oaks stood knee deep. He lowered his ax from his shoulder and leaned upon its handle. Bain looked at him and came near smiling. “Uncle John, you didn’t lose your ax, anyhow.” “Suh? Nawsuh! Any time I throws down my ax, you kin know I’s dead.” ‘Well, it’s lucky,”’ was Bain’s grim com- ment. “Have you ever rafted logs, Uncle John?” “Many’s de time! “Here, Robert— I rafted jes’ below From. Newpo’t, an’ at Augusty, too. Man an’ boy I made raf’s ’bout twenty year.” Bain ran an appraising eye over the growth of hackberry trees on the Mound. “How will they do for a raft, Uncle John?” “Dem?” The-old darkey chuckled con- descendingly. ‘‘Hack-a-berry ain’t no good fo’ dat. Hit won’t float, Mistuh Bain. Hit sho’ won’t.” . | “You mean to tell me it won’t float?” “You jes’ watch heah!”’ With four calculated, slow, but effective, strokes of his razor-keen ax, the old woods- man felled a six-inch sapling. From it he cut a billet, fireplace length; this he lifted in his stringy old black arms and flung in the water. It did not bob up as wood should. It was gone. ‘““___!”” muttered Bain. ‘“Nawsuh!”’ Uncle John laughed proudly at the success of his demonstration. ‘Hit sho’ won’t float when hit’s green. Hit sometimes floats jes’ a little bit wnder de water, but hit won’t bear up no weight.” The manager perceived that escape from Indian Mound might be harder than he had supposed. He left Uncle John and jomed the other men, who were clustered about a fire which had been lighted on top of the mound. “All right, boys!” he called curtly. ‘‘Let’s get up some firewood for tonight.”’ Even enforced loafing rubbed the nap of Bain’s disposition the wrong way. The men sprang up cheerfully. Four or five. axes had been saved. While some felled and split hackberry saplings, others carried the fuel to the top of the mound. Already the sun was below the majestic cypresses of Dupree Lake, and a tang of frost mingled with the earthy smell of miles of muddy water. A V of wild geese shot across the red west, going south. \ BAIN had the wood piled in a hollow square, open on the south- ern side. Some of the older men, under Uncle John Key, he as- signed to making a bed of leaves inside the wind-break thus provided. “Cap,” asked Willie Thompson, just as darkness shut down upon Indian Mound, ‘is we gwine to ever git off’n heah?”’ “T ought to be able to figure out some way, Willie.” “Onliest thing—you knows how niggers COMIGDIOOKSEEO