PEPACTON 



wise rats knew better than I did; they had received 

 private advices from headquarters, that I knew not 

 of. Finally, about the 6th of December, the nests 

 assumed completion ; the northern incline was ab- 

 sorbed or carried up, and each structure became 

 a strong, massive cone, three or four feet high, the 

 largest nest of the kind I had ever seen. Does it 

 mean a severe winter ? I inquired. An old farmer 

 said it meant " high water," and he was right once, 

 at least, for in a few days afterward we had the 

 heaviest rainfall known in this section for half a 

 century. The creeks rose to an almost unprece- 

 dented height. The sluggish pond became a seeth- 

 ing, turbulent water-course ; gradually the angry 

 element crept up the sides of these lake dwellings, 

 till, when the rain ceased, about four o'clock, they 

 showed above the flood no larger than a man's hat. 

 During the night the channel shifted till the main 

 current swept over them, and next day not a vestige 

 of the nests was to be seen; they had gone down- 

 stream, as had many other dwellings of a less tem- 

 porary character. The rats had built wisely, and 

 would have been perfectly secure against any ordi- 

 nary high water, but who can foresee a flood ? The 

 oldest traditions of their race did not run back to 

 the time of such a visitation. 



Nearly a week afterward another dwelling was 

 begun, well away from the treacherous channel, 

 but the architects did not work at it with much 

 140 



