They offered no explanation of their whereabouts during the trouble,
but Bennington surmised shrewdly that they had hunted a dry place.
"Glory!" cried Old Mizzou. "Lucky she misses us!"
"What was it? Where'd it come from?" inquired Bennington, shaking the
surface drops from his shoulders. He was wet through.
"Cloud-burst," replied the miner. "She hit up th' ridge a ways. If
she'd ever burst yere, sonny, ye'd never know what drownded ye. Look at
that gulch!"
The water had now drained from the hill entirely. It could be seen that
most of the surface earth had been washed away, leaving the skeleton of
the mountain bare. Some of the more slightly rooted trees had fallen,
or clung precariously to the earth with bony fingers. But the gulch
itself was terrible. The mountain laurel, the elders, the sarvis
bushes, the wild roses which, a few days before, had been fragrant and
beautiful with blossom and leaf and musical with birds, had
disappeared. In their stead rolled an angry brown flood whirling in
almost unbroken surface from bank to bank. Several oaks, submerged to
their branches, raised their arms helplessly.
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