A RACE FOR LIFE
Those who have been so unfortunate as to be placed in the path of an
overwhelming flood, which after slowly gathering for weeks and months
finally bursts all barriers, need not be told that the awful roar
caused by the resistless sweep can never be mistaken for anything
else.
The mill-dam, to which we have made more than one reference, had not
been erected, like that at Johnstown, to afford fishing grounds for
those who were fond of the sport, but was reared fully twenty years
before to provide water-power for a company of capitalists, who
proposed erecting a series of mills and manufactories in the valley
below. They progressed as far in their enterprise as the formation of
a substantial dam when the company collapsed, and that was the end of
their scheme.
The dam remained, with its enormous reservoir of water, which, in
summer, furnished excellent fishing and, in the winter, fine skating;
but during all that time the valuable store of power remained idle.
The sudden breakage of the dam, without apparent cause, was
unaccompanied by the appalling features which marked the great
disaster in Pennsylvania a short time since. The town of Piketon was
not in the course of the flood, nor were there any dwelling-houses
exposed to the peril with the exception of the home of a single humble
laborer.
The water became a terrific peril for a brief while, but such masses
speedily exhaust themselves, though it was fortunate indeed that the
topography of the country was so favorable that the uncontrollable
fury was confined in so narrow a space.
But the camp of the Piketon Rangers lay exactly in the course of the
flood. Bob Budd and his friends had pitched their tent there because
the spot was an inviting one in every respect, and no one had ever
dreamed of danger from the breaking of the reservoir above.
It was night when that fearful roar interrupted the conversation of
the Rangers. The young men were silent on the instant, and stared with
bated breath in each other’s faces.
“Great Heaven!” exclaimed Bob Budd, rising partly from his seat, “the
dam has burst!”
“And I can’t swim a stroke!” gasped the terrified Wagstaff.
“Nor me either!” added McGovern; “I guess the end has come, boys.”
“I can swim,” replied Bob, trembling from head to foot, “but that
won’t help me at such a time as this.”
“Are we going to stay here and be drowned?” demanded Jim, rousing
himself; “we might as well go down fighting; every one for himself!”
As he uttered this exclamation he dashed through the tent and among
the trees outside, where the rays of the moon could not penetrate, and
it was dark as Egypt.
A strong wind seemed to be blowing, though a few minutes before the
air was as still as at the close of a sultry summer afternoon. The
wind was cool. It was caused by the rush of waters through the dense
forest.
It was evident to McGovern and the rest that there was but one
possible means of escape—possibly two—and he attempted that which
first occurred to him: that was by dashing at right angles to the
course of the torrent. If he could reach ground higher than the
surface of the water, as it came careering through the wood, he would
be safe; but he and his companions knew when the awful roar broke upon
them that the waters were close, while it was a long run to the
elevated country on either side.
But if anything of the kind was to be attempted there was not a moment
to spare. One second might settle the question of life and death.
“Maybe I can make it!” was the thought that thrilled McGovern as he
began fighting his way through the wood, stumbling over bushes,
bumping against trunks, and picking his way as best he could; “it
isn’t very far to the high ground, but I have to go so blamed
slow—great thunder! my head’s sawed off!”
At that moment a stubby limb caught under the chin of the frantic
fugitive and almost lifted him off his feet. He quickly freed himself
and dashed wildly on again with feelings that must have resembled
those of the multitude fleeing from before the sweep of the
overwhelming lava.
A vine enclosed the ankle of the fugitive and he fell headlong; he was
instantly up again and collided with a tree, which he did not detect
soon enough in the gloom; at any other time McGovern would have taken
his own time in rising and vented his feelings, but he did not do so
now; his single thought was one wild, desperate hope that he might
escape.
He never exerted himself so before, for, despite the stirring
experiences through which he had passed in his short life, he had
never encountered anything like this.
Those who have hovered on the verge of death have made known that in
the few seconds when life was passing, the whole record of their
former lives has swept like a panorama before them. The events of
months and years have clustered in those few fearful moments.
Jim McGovern’s experience was somewhat similar. There were mighty few
seconds at his command, while struggling with the whole energy of his
nature to reach the rising ground beyond reach of the flood; but in
some respects that brief interval of time was as so many years to him.
How well it will be if, when we reach that supreme moment which must
come to all of us, the hasty retrospect brings us pleasure and hope
rather than remorse and despair!
There was nothing of this nature in the review that surged through the
brain of the miserable fellow. Broken promises, disobedience to
parents, wrangling, thievery, drinking—these were the scarlet tints of
the picture which memory painted for him in vivid colors.
“If you’ll only save me,” he gasped, addressing the sole One who could
rescue him, “I will stop the bad things I’ve been doing all my life,
and do my best to live right always.”
Would he never pass the boundary of this narrow valley? It had always
seemed straight to him before, but now its width was expanded not to
yards and rods, but to miles. And never were the trees so close
together or the bushes, vines, and undergrowth so dense, or his own
wind so short, or his muscles so weak.
Suddenly something cold was felt against his ankle.
He knew what it was—it was water!
The fringe of the flood had reached him. Where the bursting away was
so instantaneous and the released volume was so enormous, the flow
could not be like that of an ordinary torrent, which rises rapidly
because of the swiftly-increasing mass behind it. The awful rush at
Johnstown resembled the oncoming of a tidal wave or wall of water, so
high, so prodigious, so resistless that nothing less than the side of
a granite mountain could check it.
It would have been the same in the case we are describing, though of
course to a less degree, but for the interposing wood, which,
beginning at the very base of the dam, continued the entire length of
the valley, which was several miles in extent.
Some of these trees were uprooted as if by a cyclone, others were bent
and partly turned over, while the sturdiest, which did not stand near
the middle of the path, held their own, like giants resisting death
tugging at their vitals.
The woods also acted as a brake, so to speak, on the velocity of the
terrific rush of waters. The flow could not be stopped nor turned
aside, but it was hindered somewhat, and, as it came down the hollow,
was twisted and driven into all manner of eddies, whirlpools, and
currents, in which the most powerful swimmer was as helpless as an
infant.
“It’s no use!” panted McGovern, when he felt the cold current rising
about his ankles like the coiling of a water-snake; “I must die, and
with all my sins on my head! Heaven have mercy! do not desert me now
when a little farther and I will be saved!”
Never was a more agonized appeal made to his Creator than that by the
despairing McGovern.