waters was like a high wind. In a moment all the lights in Elmvale went
out.

"The powerhouse has gone!" shrieked Frenchy, when he saw this.

"And everything else, I guess!" quavered Ikey, clinging to the back of
the automobile seat and hoarse from shouting.

Dim as the light from the stars and the moon was, they could see the
front of the wave of released water. When it struck the big mill
buildings at Elmvale the foamy water sprang up in geysers.

Several of the big buildings went down under the impact of the flood.
The smaller hovels were swept off their foundations. Those people who
had not escaped from the middle of the village must be overcome by the
sweep of the flood.

Below the Main Street bridge in Elmvale, the channel of the river was
much wider than above the bridge. It was navigable for small vessels,
too, from Seacove to that point.

Schooners and barges moored to the docks below the bridge were cast up
on the crest of the flood, their hawsers snapped like packthread, and
they were whirled away, some to be cast later far back from the
established bank of the stream.

It was tidewater below the bridge, and fortunately it was low tide. The
channel of the river, therefore, could take the greater bulk of the
flood, and the valley widening so quickly, the depth of the outflow of
the dam was much decreased directly below the wrecked hamlet.