Ande and Dick, for the strangers were none other, were aroused by the first, glancing rays of the sun that penetrated the curtains of their little window. Flinging aside the curtain drapery, they gazed forth delighted on the scene. Within a few yards of the house wall rolled the roaring, yellow flood of the Lycamahoning, a mighty torrent, sweeping beyond its natural bounds. Tree trunk and brush and what not tossed hither and thither by its rollicking mood, yet bore ever onward. It was an ambitious stream, for the banks could not hold it. The turnpike, beyond the bridge, was hidden three feet from sight, and tearing through the underbrush on either side of the public way was an ever-widening torrent. The town was on higher ground than the turnpike beyond and so escaped the damage of the flood. "What a grand country, Dick, old chap," said Ande, surveying the scene with interest. "This is better than hot Louisiana or even the Mississippi prairies." "Humph!" yawned Dick; "but not better than Brazil." Then as he ceased stretching his great arms over his head; "Just think of it, Ande, if we had not been picked up by that outward bound Brazilian ship, we would not be independent now. Ah! diamonds and gold! That's the country, lad." "Softly, softly, Dick," said Ande in a lower tone, "we're not going to advertise our circumstances. A month or so here, then home to Merrie England." "And right glad will I be," said Dick; "but let's down and see what this settlement in the backwoods is like." Ande followed by Dick went cautiously down the steep stairway, that seemed squeezed between the great chimney and the farther wall and led out at the bottom into the public room. There was no one in the public room when they entered, and so they wended their way across to the door and thence out into the street, if street it could be called. The hotel of Peter Burke was at the head of the main and only street of Burgtown, and one walking straight from the front door of the hotel would pass down an avenue, prolific in stumps, midway between two rows of log houses. Back of the tavern and but a few yards from it rolled and roared the Lycamahoning, and but a few yards from the north end was the covered bridge. It thus stood with the homes stretching from it in parallel lines, like a captain at the head of his soldiers. Several citizens were abroad already with their axes and were busily felling a forest giant that, isolated and ostracised with a few others, waved its branches in the air above the middle of the main thoroughfare of Burgtown. Several raftsmen with Hugh Lark at their head were standing at the end of the broad porch gazing over toward the bridge and the rushing yellow flood, shaking their heads dubiously at it, well knowing that there would be no rafting either that day or the next. The flood was too high.