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Updated: May 29, 2025
As he partially rose Bug leaped upon him, and both men rolled over to the edge of a gaping hole in the floor. They struggled an instant on the brink, and then fell through, landing with a terrific splash in the flooded wasteway far below.
He went clear under, but came to the surface quickly, and swam with vigorous strokes down the wasteway. Both the air and the water were warm, and he felt little discomfort. Between the reflex current from the creek on top, and the undertow from the sluiceway beneath, he was buffeted about considerably before he succeeded in emerging on the spit of land between the mill and the creek.
"Unless the island became flooded. I never thought of that before." Ned walked quickly to the side window and looked out. "The water is still on the rise," he said gloomily. "It is backing into the wasteway and crawling up the slope toward the mill. You can hardly see anything of the dam. To tell the truth, Randy, I believe the creek is quite high enough to cover that island." Randy turned pale.
Lend me that empty gun," he added, turning to Ned. "I'll cross the wasteway in the boat and get behind the trees a few yards up the hill. If the rascal attempts to crawl out the window I'll scare him back." Ned handed over the gun, and the farmer departed in haste. Hocker and Jeffries moved aside and carried on a whispered conversation. Bug was left to his own devices.
Hocker was about to rejoin his companions when a dark figure came down the road and passed through a strip of moonlight which served to reveal his identity. It was Abner Peck, the farm hand. In response to a whispered command from Hocker the man jumped into the boat and pulled hastily across the wasteway.
This enabled them to cross the sluiceway in safety, and after noting with some alarm that the creek was still coming up rapidly, they entered the saw mill at the upper end, where the floor was level with the breast work of the dam or rather a few feet above it. The lower end was twelve or fifteen feet higher than the wasteway, and was supported by an open network of huge beams.
He had confidently expected to find Moxley sound asleep, and instead of that the fellow was sitting upright with his gun across his knees, and his bottle in one hand. Perhaps the splash made by Ned's drop into the wasteway had wakened him without arousing his supicions. He had no present intention of going to sleep, for he moved a little closer to the light of the lantern, and filled his pipe.
He crept down the shore of the creek, and crossed the slope to the wasteway. "Is it all right, Zinn?" he called out. "Yes," came the reply. "The rascal stuck his ugly head out of the winder a moment ago, but I scared him back. He can't escape on this side."
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