The earth in every direction was like an oversoaked sponge,
and the surplus water was pouring in turbid torrents into the rivers.
From every quarter of the vast Mississippi Valley these watery legions
were hurried forward to join the all-conquering forces of the great
river.
It had been high-water in the Ohio when the _Venture_ lay at Cairo.
When it passed the mouth of the Arkansas its crew were amazed at the
mighty volume of its muddy flood. From this on they floated in company
with ever-increasing masses of drift--trees, fences, farming
implements, straw-stacks, cotton-bales, out-buildings, and every now
and then a house, lifted bodily from its foundations, and borne away in
the resistless arms of the ever-swelling tide. Most of the houses were
empty, but from several of them the ready skiff of the _Venture_
effected rescues, now of a solitary individual driven to the verge of
despair by the lonely terrors of his situation, and then of whole
wretched families who had lost everything in the world except their
lives. A cow, several pigs, and dozens of barn-yard fowls also found
an asylum on the friendly raft, until, as Billy Brackett said, it
reminded one of the original and only Noah's ark menagerie.
Besides supplying the raft with passengers, the river helped to feed
them. Floating straw-stacks and shocks of corn were always in sight,
while fresh milk and eggs, pork and chickens, drifted with the current
on all sides.
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