Raymond S. Spears

“ The size of the flood, the vastness of the surface, made the fugitive boy feel trivial and insignificant, and hidden from every one’s sight—as indeed he was. When Driftwood had had his supper, and was sound asleep in warm night-clothes which the shanty-boat women had given him, Jep turned the light in the brass lamp low, and, putting on a heavy woolen shirt, stepped outside to keep vigilant watch and guard.
There was no shore in sight that night—just the faintly glimmering, drift-shadowed gloom of wide surfaces and dark-softened, half-submerged woods. ”

“ The great snag, to which he had tied up, sunk low in the water and weighing tons, like a tug carried the shanty-boat down, bend after bend, unstirred by the pressure of the wind against the sides of the unwilling craft, which dragged first one way in one bend and then another way in the next as the winding current led in and out of the steady breeze. Higher, lighter drift was blown to the leeward, where huge masses of the flotsam crashed into the standing forests with a terrific roar of rending wood, but the low-lying chunks and snags held true to the channel like a sea-anchor to the wind. ”

“ Miles of sandbars were shifting in those wandering undercurrents at that very moment; in low water the wind would blow the sand about in flying clouds like snow, while the falling particles gathered in waves and swells and drifts, yellow as new gold in the sunshine, with rare and wonderful purples and blues in the shadows under the crested reefs. ”