The giant gave orders. The men hung back. Then we heard him roaring like a bull of Bashan.
“Git into that ar water, evvy man of you uns, an’ swim fur that ar ambulance! I was put in comman’ er this here expuddition, an’ I means ter comman’ it. ’Bey orders, you uns is got ter, or you uns’ll git reported to headquarters ez I’m a sinner. Git in that thar water. Furrard! Swim!”
How well I remember the great, good-natured giant as he swam around our ambulance, bobbing up and down, and taking in our bearings!
“You see, cap,” he said, “all the bridge is washed away but the sleepers, an’ that’s what you uns is hung on. Unhitch them mules,” to some of his men.
“Now, cap, soon’s them mules is loose we uns’ll lif the ambulance off er this, an’ pull you uns to shore. Jes you uns make yourse’fs easy, and we uns’ll git you uns out er this.”
The mules unhitched were led to shore, and then the men pulled the ambulance safely to land. I don’t remember what became of the thirteen mighty men. Nor do I recall clearly the rest of that cold ride when I shivered in my clothes, but I remember getting to a house where I was seated in a great chair close to a blazing fire of hickory logs, and I remember that when I went to get out my night-dress I found all the clothes in my trunk wet, and that when I went to bed I felt as if I were going to be ill, and that I rested badly. But the next morning I was up and on my way again. Again we came to a swollen stream. This time we could see the bridge, and it wobbled about. Dan thought it was safe to drive over. But not I! Just then some gentlemen came up behind us and insisted that I was right. So I got out of the ambulance and was helped across on some logs or beams or something which stretched across the stream underneath the bridge, and may have been a part of it, but whatever they were I thought them more secure than an ambulance and mules and an uncertain bridge. I made Dan cross this way, too, though he said it wasn’t best for his leg, and made all sorts of complaints about it. The ambulance was obliged to cross on the bridge, and the devoted Jerry drove it, quarreling and complaining and praying all the way. We had not gone much farther before, lo! here was Stony Creek, swollen to bursting, rushing and furious, and again a hidden bridge.