Stand By

awled in the midst of radio wreckage on the floor of his cabin, which was reeling and rocking, adrift in the flood. Water s

s he managed to climb to the rafters, dragging with him his little shoulder-pack radio though he feared the f

e other flood-loosed buildings, tangle of house furnishings, sw

ntly on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. The boy was catapulted into the air, then down into the flood, and came up, swimming for life. When the waves flung him against the big derel

o inch himself up the house wall to gain a high window sill and to crawl

artling to have words come out of t

pain and one leg was stiffly bound in crude splints made of broken chair slats. "Captain Jan Bartlot, explorer, welcomes you to his home." A hand was extended as Lee cra

ood, the drifting, this man with bronzed face and queer accent-all

life for the man and the boy unless rescue came to them. But how

o it! If only he

patched together. Lee rummaged through the derelict house for repair material. He smashed open the swollen doors of closets and cupboards and found glass jars, some tins, nails and pieces of wire. With these he went forward with his task. But it was hopeless! He could find nothing to replace the

ouse floor. It is remarkable how, in times of dire stress, two utter strangers can be drawn together. In a short time

ch of the rare stones and minerals that were his hobbies. He had prospected down in tropic jungles, where one had to dodge the poison darts of black head-hunters, where

ut of an Aztec king's tomb, and a piece of nickel-iron star stone from a meteor that fell in frozen Greenland. Rather far extremes, eh? A New York museum wants to buy my collection. I came back to my old home where I could catalog my specimens in peac

sentence in a groan, as the injured man, de

now," said Lee. "Do you thi

nscious when the last step was achieved. Diamonds in their leather roll and some useless radio junk had no particular value in a crisis like this. Nevertheless, Renaud returned to

king building last much longer? A booming deto

rtion of the old house. Lower and lower in the flood tide rode t

s, Lee began to drag him up the narrow, ladder-like stair that led into this turret. His heart was sick at the horrible jolting h

the trapdoor down between them and that creeping flood below. H

upor and lay very still, clenc

last refuge, Lee Renaud bent over his wrecked radio. His fingers straightened a loop of aerial here, made a connection there, crank

d forth across the tiny receiver plate, outlining the mesh of missing wires-and a

n! Electricity following a penc

t hope

generator arm, adjusted transmit

er that yellow torrent, a soun

ing all night. First buzz sign

r. "Out in an old cupola top house-sinking fast. That dou

," wirelessed young Hicks. "Must a m

. So Renaud stuck to his post till one of the rescue motor boats could thread the flood litter and circle in near enough to get a hawser to the derel

a height above the flood, a city of tents had sprung up. Motor trucks, muddy to the wheel top, showed how transportation had been accomplished. Supplies in stacks, a long hospital tent, doctors, nurses, a flo

stance of a whole state to the relief of the

ittle motor boat, "folks sure answered the call of that old

vent. "And, boy, when you brought r