Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/209

 entanglement the poor things were half shorn. Little white flags of mohair still flutter from those bushes in commemoration of the event.

All the known springs were gushing noisily, and many new ones were developing in unheard-of places. One day little streams of water came coursing down the hillside just back of the house, gradually broadening, then soon united, forming a swiftly flowing shallow river of bright orange color,—the coloring material furnished, we supposed, by the red soil of Mount Nebo above. It was the strangest sight imaginable, reminding us of the flood at Glen Quharity that Barrie tells of in the story of “The Little Minister.” Indeed, many of the scenes here were as wild as those the “Dominie” looked out upon from the schoolhouse in the Glen.

If Mrs. Noah had great yellow waves of thick muddy water dashing against her habitation, it’s no wonder she welcomed the coming of the ark. I told Tom he really must do something, or we should be forced to take to the hills, as I believed the house would be swept into Deer Leap and carried by the high tide down to the Willamette and from there out to sea. Though he said, “I should think you’d like that, you’ve always wanted a house-boat,” he at once began digging canals. When he had finished, he called me out to see how madly the water was dashing through them.