Page:Moving Picture Boys and the Flood.djvu/94

84 "You can get some to-morrow morning," Colonel Whitmore told them. "We'll still be here in the morning, unless the river rises too suddenly."

"Is it going up fast now?" asked Mr. Ringold.

"About an inch an hour, and that's fast enough for us," was the grim answer, and the Southerner looked at a stick he had thrust into the bank at the edge of the stream, to keep watch of the rate of rise. It was marked with little notches, an inch apart, and these notches were slowly, but gradually and relentlessly, being covered by the rising flood of the Mississippi.

All through the night they toiled, the moving picture boys working with feverish energy to do what they could to help save the town. There was really no obligation on them to do this, but they felt a friendly interest in those whose homes were in danger from the great flood.

And the boys, also, might be said to have a little selfish motive. They wanted to get moving pictures of the work of strengthening the levee, as this would form part of the series of stirring views they hoped to get. Thus another of the many phases of the work of fighting the flood could be shown.

Barrow-load after barrow-load of dirt was