Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-01-10

closed doors before torrents of rain descended,
borne on gusts of hurricane force that blew
open the north door of the dining room, picked
up great pin pool board standing across a
notwithstanding opening in the partition,
swept it across the breadth OF the office, mar
row1y missed Mayberry and FAINT, and dashed
it to splinters against the opposite wall.
Ten minutes later the violence of rain and
downpour slackened, almost stopped.
Shanghai went to the door and looked out,
shivered, and shut it with the remark, by
cripes, fe11ers pears like or Mahster plumb
emptied : tanks that clatter! The hull flats
under wat
Maybe so He's stackin' US up agin'
swimmin' match" was Fants cheerful COM
ment.
And within another ten minutes it certainly
seemed that FAINT had called the turn. A ire
mendous crash of thunder came, with light
ming flashes that illumined the room till our
oil lamps looked like firefies, followed by
other tornado driven downpour that it seemed
hopeless to expect the house could survive.
And while our ears were still stunned by its
first roar, suddenly there came flood waters
pouring in over doorsills and through floor
cracks, rising at rate that instantly drove
us all to refuge on the second floor of the
hotel We were certainly in the track. If not
the center, of a waterspout. But barely were
we up stairs before the aerial 1oodgates closed
till no more than an ordinary heavy, soaking
rain was falling, and the wind slackened sui
ficiently to permit us to climb out on the roof
of the porch and take stock of the situation.
Our case looked grave enough, grave past
hope of escape or even help.
Fellers, quietly remarked Shanghai,
here's game where passin don't go-least-
wise till it's cash in an pass out o existence.
Here's where I'd sell my chances o seem to-
morrow's sun at dollar head, an agree not
to tally more'n about five head. I've been up
ag'in' Yankee charges where the air was full of
lead and the cold steel 'peared to hide all the
L
two days and nights surrounded by Conan
ches, and been bushwhacked by Kiowas on
the Palo Pinto; but never till now has Shang-
hal been up ag in game he couldn't figure
out way to beat"
Apparently the End of Hope
A ND so in truth it looked. The whole world
was adoat, raging, tossing hood-our
world at least. To us universal flood could
mean no more Far as the eye could see rolled
water And the waters were rising all the time,
ever rising higher and higher,-not creeping
but rising leapng up the pillars of the porch.
1t seemed only matter of moments before the
hotel must collapse or be swept from its foun-
dations.
Already the flood beneath us dotted
thick with drifting f1otsam, wrecks of houses,
fences, stables, sidewalks Men, women, and
children were afoat on the wreckage, drifting
they knew not where, safe they knew not how
long. shrieking for aid no one could lend.
Dumb beasts and fowls drifted by us, their
inarticulate terror cries rising shrill above the
piping of the wind-cattle bawling, pigs
squealng dogs bowling horses neighing, chick
ems clucking madly. and even the ducks and
geese quacking notes of alarm.
1t seemed the end of the world, no less-at
least of our little corner OF 1t
However the old Spofford House held to its
foundations was a mystery, unless it stood
without the line of the strongest current. But
hold it stoutly did, until, perhaps fifteen
minutes after we were driven up stairs, word
was passed out to us by watchers within on
the staircase that the rise had stopped, just
about halfway between floor and ceiling of the
first story.
Then the Cyclone
A ND right then, just as we were catching
our breath to interchange congratulations,
new terror menaced us,-a terror even more
appalling than the remorseless flood that still
held us III its grip; inky black pail of cloud
still shut out the stars and shrouded all the
earth, but pail so riven and torn by constantly
recurring flashes of sheet lightning, that our
entire field of view lit almost as bright as
by midday sun.
Suddenly, off in the SOUTH over the divide