"
"We marched against that stream for something like a hundred and fifty
miles. No water ever got past us. We left a perfectly dry bed behind.
Up in the northern part of the state not a drop of water came down the
river in a month. We followed it, or at least a lot of us did, clean to
its source in some hills a piece back of us. We drank it dry up to a
place like this, only bigger, and do you know, a fellow of our company
named Jim Lambert was following it up under the rocks, and we had to pull
him out by the feet to keep him from being suffocated. That was four
days ago, and we had a field telegram yesterday from a place near the
Ohio, saying that a full head of water had come down the river again,
three feet deep from bank to bank and running as if there had been a
cloudburst in the hills. Mighty glad they were to see it, too."
There was a silence, but at length a solemn youth sitting near said in
very serious tones:
"I've thought over that story very thoroughly, and I believe it's a lie."
"Vermont," said the first Ohio lad, "don't you have faith in my friend's
narrative?"
"I believe every word of it," said Warner warmly.
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