Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/55

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
D'RI AND I
47

water. I handed our axe through a break in the wall, and then D'ri cut away some of the baseboards and joined me. We had our meal cooking in a few minutes—our dinner, really, for D'ri said it was near noon. Having eaten, we crawled out of the window, and then D'ri began to pry the logs apart.

"Ain't much 'fraid o' their tumblin' on us," said he. "They 're withed so they 'll stick together."

We got to another cave under the logs, at the water's edge, after an hour of crawling and prying. A side of the raft was in the water.

"Got t' dive," said D'ri, "an' swim fer daylight."

A long swim it was, but we came up in clear water, badly out of breath. We swam around the timber, scrambling over a dead cow, and up-shore. The ruined raft was torn and tumbled into a very mountain of logs at the edge of the water. The sun was shining clear, and the air was still. Limbs of trees, bits of torn cloth, a broken hay-rake, fragments of wool, a wagon-wheel, and two dead sheep were scattered along the shore. Where we had seen the whirlwind