Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1916-06-15

sigh that trembled to his hips came
realization.
From head to toe he was battered
and bruised. His cotton clothes were
in tatters. His chest heaved in great,
spasmodic gasps. Breath whistled
through his wracked lungs. His eyes
protruded. His head ached till 1t
seemed on the verge Of bursting. But
to his mind pierced a thought sharper
than pain--the thought of Margarita
and the Man. With cienched teeth he
struck out for the current.
Far, far away rose dusty line of
mist. 1t marked the head of the flood
the meeting of water with the accumu-
lated dust of rainless months. Gerry
recognized the meaning of that line.
Somewhere there in the turmoil Of tho
first rush Of the mad flood were Mar
garita and the Man-what was left of
them. The distance dismayed him, but
he swan on. Then he felt the fast an
preaching end of endurance. A sob
choked him.
1t was only minutes till his arms re-
fused to answer to his will. They
moved SO weakly that more than once
his gasping mouth sank below the wa
ter. He swallowed great gulps of the
turgid flood. Then an uprooted tree
brushed by him. He clutched its
branches.
When all else in the world has
passed from mans brain there re-
mains the life instinct--the will to fight
for the last minute of his allotted be-
Ing. The life instinct was all that still
lived In Gerry. 1t urged him to last
effort. He dragged his body upon the
tree where the branches forked from
the main trunk. Utterly exhausted, he
sank into their embrace. They held
him as though In q cradle.
The rush of the waters began to
slacken. They stretched out over the
valley and crept up its sides. They did
not flow SO much now as rise. The val
ley became moving sea. On its flow
Ing surface beasts, fowls and reptiles
struggled, mad-eyed, for life. Here
and there bloated carcass, brought
down from far up the river, Numbered
blindly through the living and brought
screams Of terror from the swimming
horses, and gasping lows from the
struggling cattle.
From the middle of the sea rose the
old plantation house still high and dry
on Its mound. 1t seemed very tiny
toy house on a lonely islet.
70 nj
with green sailed gayly along. 1t
caught in the branches of Gerry's tree.
Uprooted cotton bushes foated by, and
cane, snapped off, sometimes torn up
in whole hills, banked up against the
tree and formed a vast, unstable
island, toward which swan the delud-
ed stock.
From tie mouth Of the cleft in the
river gorge issued laundering cata-
ract. 1t had burst through the walls
of the ditch and even unseated a Sec
ton Of the rocky crag against which
the slulce-gate had been buttressed.
The ditch was gone. 1t could never
be again, for the water was tearing
the channel Of the cleft deeper and
deeper. The turbid food devoured the
silt of the valley, accumulated since
man was, and carried it. seething, out
towards the river. The valley would
be left naked, stripped OF the source
Of life.
Gerry's tree had crawled away from
the main current. In a vast eddy it
approached the mound whereon squat
ted the old plantation house. Dona
Maria stood at the edge of the waters.
Her two hands were clenched and held
above her gray head. Thin wisps of
hair hung about her face. Her face
was distorted. She was cursing Gerry,
cursing the day Of his birth, the day Of
his coming, the day he had opened his
ditch. She swept her arms over the
terrible scene and called down the
curse of all the ruin and death on his
head. But Gerry was beyond hearing.
In all the world there was none to hear
the old woman. She stood alone; about
her the silent waters, above her the
blazing blue sky.
The tree shot out Of the eddy. The
current, the main current from the
cleft, caught it squarely and swept it
away. 1t suddenly shook its long trail
Of riffraff, and turning and turning,
more and more swiftly, swan out on
to the churning bosom Of the great
river.
The valley had disappeared. Squat
ting on the very level of the far-fung
waters, the old house still stood. The
bright sun struck a CLINT of light from
its white walls and gave rich colors to
its moss-grown tiles. The roof was
crowded with fowl and a strange med
ley Of heavy flying birds, glad OF
perch on which to rest. Dona Maria
went into the house. She closed the
great board shutters. The house looked
as If it had closed its eyes in last
remuneration.
Gerry's tree f1oated down the river.
It swung slowly along near the north
shore. Just below it were houses.
They were perched on the cliff. Below