DRi and I | Page 9

all the noises that ever came to the ear of man--the beating of drums, the bellowing of cattle, the crash of falling trees, the shriek of women, the rattle of machinery, the roar of waters, the crack of rifles, the blowing of trumpets, the braying of asses, and sounds the like of which I have never heard and pray God I may not hear again, one and then another dominating the mighty chorus. Behind us, in the gloom, I could see, or thought I could see, the reeling mass of green ploughing the water, like a ship with chains of gold flashing over bulwarks of fire. In a moment something happened of which I have never had any definite notion. I felt the strong arm of D'ri clasping me tightly. I heard the thump and roll and rattle of the logs heaping above us; I felt the water washing over me; but I could see nothing. I knew the raft had doubled; it would fall and grind our bones: but I made no effort to save myself. And thinking how helpless I felt is the last I remember of the great windfall of June 3, 1810, the path of which may be seen now, fifty years after that memorable day, and I suppose it will be visible long after my bones have crumbled. I thought I had been sleeping when I came to; at least, I had dreamed. I was in some place where it was dark and still. I could hear nothing but the drip of water; I could feel the arm of D'ri about me, and I called to him, and then I felt him stir.
"Thet you, Ray?" said he, lifting his head.
"Yes," I answered. "Where are we?"
"Judas Priest! I ain' no idee. Jes' woke up. Been a-layin' here tryin' t' think. Ye hurt?"
"Guess not," said I.
"Ain't ye got no pains or aches nowhere 'n yer body?"
"Head aches a little," said I.
He rose to his elbow, and made a light with his flint and tinder, and looked at me.
"Got a goose-egg on yer for'ard," said he, and then I saw there was blood on his face.
"Ef it hed n't been fer the withes they 'd 'a' ground us t' powder."
We were lying alongside the little house, and the logs were leaning to it above us.
"Jerushy Jane Pepper!" D'ri exclaimed, rising to his knees. "'S whut I call a twister."
He began to whittle a piece of the splintered platform. Then he lit a shaving.
"They 's ground here," said he, as he began to kindle a fire, "ground a-plenty right under us."
The firelight gave us a good look at our cave under the logs. It was about ten feet long and probably half as high. The logs had crashed through the side of the house in one or two places, and its roof was a wreck.
"Hungry?" said D'ri, as he broke a piece of board on his knee.
"Yes," I answered.
"So 'm I," said he, "hungrier 'n a she-wolf. They 's some bread 'n' ven'son there 'n the house; we better try t' git 'em."
An opening under the logs let me around the house corner to its door. I was able to work my way through the latter, although it was choked with heavy timbers. Inside I could hear the wash of the river, and through its shattered window on the farther wall I could see between the heaped logs a glow of sunlit water. I handed our axe through a break in the wall, and then D'ri cut away some of the baseboards and joined me. We had our meal cooking in a few minutes--our dinner, really, for D'ri said it was near noon. Having eaten, we crawled out of the window, and then D'ri began to pry the logs apart.
"Ain't much 'fraid o' their tumblin' on us," said he. "They 're withed so they 'll stick together."
We got to another cave under the logs, at the water's edge, after an hour of crawling and prying. A side of the raft was in the water.
"Got t' dive," said D'ri, "an' swim fer daylight."
A long swim it was, but we came up in clear water, badly out of breath. We swam around the timber, scrambling over a dead cow, and up-shore. The ruined raft was torn and tumbled into a very mountain of logs at the edge of the water. The sun was shining clear, and the air was still. Limbs of trees, bits of torn cloth, a broken hay-rake, fragments of wool, a wagon-wheel, and two dead sheep were scattered along the shore. Where we had seen the whirlwind coming, the sky was clear, and beneath it was a great gap in the woods, with ragged walls of evergreen. Here and there in the gap a stub was standing, trunk