The Flood

During the dry season Cherry Creek is a mere thread of water, over which a man may step without risk of wetting the soles of, his boots, and it was only after the spring freshets that it could fairly be counted as a stream.

Now during those days of May the creek lay as unruffled and as threadlike as I had ever seen it. No one dreamed of a flood. In fact, not a man, woman, or child gave more than a passing thought to that tiny stream of water which trickled through our city.

It chanced that on that night I was sleeping in the shop, having worked there until midnight, and rather than spend the time walking home, I had lain down upon a pile of burlap.

I had hardly more than closed my eyes when I was aroused by a loud rumbling noise like continuous thunder, which jarred the very earth, and for the space of twenty seconds I sat bolt upright on my make shift bed, peering into the darkness, terror-stricken, wondering what manner of tempest was upon us.

Amid the uproar I could distinguish the sound of rushing water, and running to the shop door, I threw it back just as a mighty wall I can compare it to nothing else—tore with lightning-like speed and curling crest down the channel of the creek, the water which formed it spraying out on either side, while great waves rolled up where I had never seen water before, except when it came down from the clouds in rain.