"I'll help the ladies all right, but I'm blamed if I believe yer yarn. How'd you git here? You couldn't hev floated across the continent on that thing." "We came on the raft that you see," interrupted Mr. Samson. "We left the Appalachian Mountains two weeks ago." "Well, by--it must be true!" muttered the man. "They couldn't hev come from anywhar else in that direction. I reckon the hull blamed continent is under water." "So it is," said Professor Pludder, "and we made for Colorado, knowing that it was the only land left above the flood." All finally got upon the bluff, rejoiced to feel solid ground once more beneath their feet. But it was a desolate prospect that they saw before them. The face of the land had been scoured and gullied by the pouring waters, the vegetation had been stripped off, except where in hollows it had been covered with new-formed lakes, some of which had drained off after the downpour ceased, the water finding its way into the enveloping sea. They asked the three men what had become of the other inhabitants, and whether there was any shelter at hand. "We've be'n wiped out," said the original spokesman. "Cosmo Versál has done a pretty clean job with his flood. There's a kind of a cover that we three hev built, a ways back yonder, out o' timber o' one kind and another that was lodged about. But it wouldn't amount to much if there was another cloudburst. It wouldn't stand a minute. It's good to sleep in." "Are you the only survivors in this region?" asked the President. "I reckon you see all thet's left of us. The' ain't one out o' a hundred that's left alive in these parts." "What became of them?" "Swept off!" replied the man, with an expressive gesture--"and drownded right out under the sky." "And how did you and your companions escape?" "By gitting up amongst some rocks that was higher'n the average." "How did you manage to live--what did you have to eat?" "We didn't eat much--we didn't hev much time to think o' eatin'. We had one hoss with us, and he served, when his time come. After the sky cleared we skirmished about and dug up something that we could manage to eat, lodged in gullies where the water had washed together what had been in houses and cellars. We've got a gun and a little ammunition, and once in a while we could kill an animal that had contrived to escape somehow." "And you think that there are no other human beings left alive anywhere around here?" "I _know_ th' ain't. The's probably some up in the foothills, and around the Pike. They had a better chance to git among rocks. We hed jest made up our minds to go hunting for 'em when we ketched sight o' you, and then we concluded to stay and see who you was." "I'm surprised that you didn't go sooner." "We couldn't. There was a roarin' torrent coming down from the mountains that cut us off. It's only last night that it stopped."