On the night of the great flood people went to bed as usual. The streams had risen but little. At midnight the rain fell heavily; the firm surface of the plains shed the waters like a roof; streams rose ten feet in an hour, and the foaming currents, roaring like cataracts, came down with the force of mighty tidal waves. Many dwellers in the dug-outs sprang from their beds into water, to find egress by the doors impossible, and were fortunate if they succeeded in escaping through the chimneys or roofs. Whole families were drowned. Fort Hays, at the fork of Big Creek, and supposed to be above high-water, was inundated, six or eight soldiers being swept away, while the remainder were obliged to seek safety on the roofs of the stone barracks. Large numbers of mules, picketed on the adjacent bottoms, were drowned. Their picket-pins fast in the earth, the animals were swept from their feet by the rising waters, and towed under by the firmly-held lariats. Emigrants encamped on the bottom heard the roar of the flood; with no time to harness, they seized the tongues of their wagons themselves, but the rising tide gained on them too rapidly, and they were glad to save life at the expense of oxen and goods. The horrors of that night are indescribable, and, to crown all, they took place amid a darkness that was total. Above, was the roar of waters descending; below, the answering roar of the floods, as they rolled madly onward, carrying in their strong arms the wreck of farms, and corpses by the score. On that night Jules, the husband, perished. Honest Rombeaux and Marie, however, were rescued from the roof of their dwelling at daylight; and afterward, when the flood had subsided, the body of Jules was taken from the wash in the fire-place. And now came suspicion, and pointed over the shoulders of the throng gathered around; for there was an ugly wound half hidden in the dead husband's hair, and his fingers were bruised. Some men did not hesitate to say boldly that when Rombeaux escaped through the chimney, Jules stayed behind to assist his wife out, and that when he tried to follow, he was struck on the head by his quondam rival, and, still clinging to the chimney's edge, his fingers were pounded until their hold was loosed, and the victim sucked under the roof, against which the waters were already beating. The man and woman, however, claimed that it was the whirl of the waters against pegs and logs which had disfigured the corpse. Three weeks afterward they were married. "And now, gentlemen," said our foreman, rising from his barrel, when the evidence was all in, "the question for the jury to decide is, Was it the water that did it?" A doubt existing in the case, we gave the prisoner its benefit; but there was murder in the air, and Rombeaux knew it. Before morning he had departed--Marie said for La Belle France, but, as the citizens generally believed, really for Texas.