“We managed in this way to snake out the judge, jest ez he was sailin' round on the home stretch, passin' the quarter post two lengths ahead o' the can. A good deal o' the ice cream had washed away, but it took us ten minutes to shake the cracked ice and powdered salt out o' the old man's clothes, and warm him up again in the laurel bush where he was clinging. This sort o' 'Here we go round the mulberry bush' kep' on until most o' the humans was got out, and only the furniture o' the picnic was left in the race. Then it got kinder mixed up, and went sloshin' round here and there, ez the water kep' comin' down by the trail. Then Lulu Piper, what I was holdin' up all the time in a laurel bush, gets an idea, for all she was wet and draggled; and ez the things went bobbin' round, she calls out the figures o' a cotillon to 'em. 'Two camp-stools forward.' 'Sashay and back to your places.' 'Change partners.' 'Hands all round.' “She was clear grit, you bet! And the joke caught on and the other girls jined in, and it kinder cheered 'em, for they was wantin' it. Then Fludder allowed to pacify 'em by sayin' he just figured up the size o' the reservoir and the size o' the canyon, and he kalkilated that the cube was about ekal, and the canyon couldn't flood any more. And then Lulu--who was peart as a jay and couldn't be fooled--speaks up and says, 'What's the matter with the ditch, Dick?' “Lord! then we knew that she knew the worst; for of course all the water in the ditch itself--fifty miles of it!--was drainin' now into that reservoir and was bound to come down to the canyon.” It was at this point that the situation became really desperate, for they had now crawled up the steep sides as far as the bushes afforded foothold, and the water was still rising. The chatter of the girls ceased, there were long silences, in which the men discussed the wildest plans, and proposed to tear their shirts into strips to make ropes to support the girls by sticks driven into the mountain side. It was in one of those intervals that the distinct strokes of a woodman's axe were heard high on the upland at the point where the trail descended to the canyon. Every ear was alert, but only those on one side of the canyon could get a fair view of the spot. This was the good fortune of Captain Fairfax and Georgy Piper, who had climbed to the highest bush on that side, and were now standing up, gazing excitedly in that direction. “Some one is cutting down a tree at the head of the trail,” shouted Fairfax. The response and joyful explanation, “for a dam across the trail,” was on everybody's lips at the same time. But the strokes of the axe were slow and painfully intermittent. Impatience burst out. “Yell to him to hurry up! Why haven't they brought two men?” “It's only one man,” shouted the captain, “and he seems to be a cripple. By Jiminy!--it is--yes!--it's Tom Sparrell!”