Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1888-06-13

swept a seething, tempestuOus flood.
AS they looked and listened, Kate real
lied that this was no ordinary freshet, but
the product of heavy rainfall over the
whole vast crashed, which had accu-
mulated its forces in the thousands of
tiny rivulets, and, joining issue with the
mountain stream, plunged down its mar
row channel, q mighty and irresistible
power.
Even as they looked she saw a wall Of
water suddenly rear up above and come
down toward them like q miniature tidal
wave.
The dam, built by the new water com.
pany, had given way!
They ran back from the shore to higher
ground, and not q moment too soon. The
stream rose several feet in second. It
cut into the solid banks on either side,
and bushes and young trees, rooted up
and sucked in by the greedy current, went
spinning by. A giant sycamore wavered,
| flung out its bare and skeleton limbs as if
| in ghostly protest, and fell far out into the
stream, interlocking its branches with a
| sturdy, evergreen oak, which stood on the
opposite bank, while its trunk, loosely
anchored by long, snake-l like roots, tossed
| helplessly in mid-stream.
mamma! See the big boards coming!"
| cried out her little daughter.
Kate looked far up stream and saw a
| great timber sailing leisurely along.
| Now it caught on projecting snag and
| swung half about, now it struck sub.
| merged island, and idly disengaged it.
| self and sauntered on. Behind it was an
black with them.
The railroad bridge, and the afternoon
train now nearly due, soon to rush down
| steep grade to leap into that yawning
| chasm! Her first impulse was to start up
| the canyon, but she instantly checked
| herself. What folly, when miles of over.
flow lay between her and the doomed
train! Word must be sent down
to the station, and from there
! telegram to the next stop
ping place above the bridge. But how?
The hired man! Jim had gone an hour be-
fore to the village to get the mail and have
his daily gossip with the loungers of the
place. Even if he was here, neither horse
nor man was feet enough to cover the
circuitous road that lay between. Then
she looked at the PROSTATE sycamore.
Down the stream, leisurely, but nearer
and nearer still. sailed the great timbers.
marian, take little brother and go
straight to the house and stay there till
mamma comes back"
She had already pulled herself up by
one OF the roots, and was creeping stealthi-
ly along the swaying trunk. Here her
dress caught on q branch; there she had
to climb down and crawl along with her
feet under the water, to avoid an upright
limb. Once she slipped and lost her hold,
| and was nearly sucked into the eddying
current, but she caught at stout projec-
ton and swung herself up again.
She could hear the swash of the heavy
! timbers upstream as they rocked azily
upon the water, but she did not dare to
look. Before her the main trunk of the
tree was lost, and she saw two diverging
limbs, one low in the water, the other
locked with the oak in mid-air. Which to
take: She dared not hesitate, but COM
menced q perilous climb along the up
per limb, slippery and naked in
places, wavering so that S he grew
dizzy, and shut her eyes to keep from
falling. And so, lying prone upon it,
hand over hand, she crept the entire
length, and the great stick of timber
struck heavily against the fallen syca-
more, and just as Kate swung herself into
the branches of the oak she felt her sup
port give way, and with a groan, and
crash, and wild up-tossing Of its skeleton
arms, the old tree tore loose from it's
! mornings, and was swept down stream
toward the bay.
Her hands torn and bleeding, Kate Mid
dleton reached solid ground at length, and
| first her maternal instinct asserted itself,
and she looked back and saw her children
standing still and looking after her. She
pointed homeward with gesture that
they dared not disobey, and saw them
turn and run up the lane, then sped along
her way.
She was not light of foot as in her girl.
hood; whereas, she was once fleet as a
deer, and swift motion was a very JOY to
ing to be stout and middle-aged woman.
She moved heavily and clumsily. and
labored for breath, and her feet were like
| clods beneath her. There was mile of
rough and rocky ground to be covered be-
fore she reached the station, and the train
oh, but to possess once mere the agility
of her girlhood!
Which would be first? Would the train.
flying acrossthe upper levels of the Coast
Range, reach the next station before the
brave woman had sent her message of
| warning? How many times she asked
herself the question she could not have
told. She scarcely dared hope that she
might be in time. Her heart seemed
ready to burst with grief for the terrible
misery threatening so many happy homes.
Alas! for the orphaned children who
might cry aloud to Heaven that night
| Alas for fathers and mothers whom the
morrow might behold bowed down with
sorrow! Alas for husbands and wives -
She was crossing the bed of one of the
many abandoned channels OF the impet-
uous mountain stream, a rocky pathway,
strewn with the spoils of by-gone fresh
cts, whe re, even then, shallow stream
was ripping past, token Of the torrents
surplus force. She faltered, smitten by a
new and awful thought. What il Tom
Tom, who was not to come home for two
days more; Tom, who had started out in
an altogether different direction-should
have cut short his excursion, or, with his
party, driven home by the continued rains,
somehow wandered to one of the upper
stations, and boarded the train there!
Where was her Wanted physical
strength now? What was she, after all.
but weak, wretched woman, with tremb-