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[Illustration: "THE DAM IS GONE!" CRIED THE GIRL. "FLY FOR YOUR LIVES!"
_Page 7._]




                                  The
                       Blue Grass Seminary Girls'
                          Vacation Adventures

                                   OR

                     Shirley Willing to the Rescue

                       By Carolyn Judson Burnett

                               AUTHOR OF

          "The Blue Grass Seminary Girls' Christmas Holidays,"
           "The Blue Grass Seminary Girls in the Mountains,"
                        "The Blue Grass Seminary
                          Girls on the Water."

                           A. L. BURT COMPANY

                          PUBLISHERS NEW YORK




                            Copyright, 1916
                         By A. L. Burt Company

           THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' VACATION ADVENTURES




THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS' VACATION ADVENTURES




CHAPTER I.--THE BROKEN DAM.


"The dam! The dam! The dam has broken!"

Shirley Willing, with flaming eyes and tightly-clenched hands, jumped
quickly forward, and with her right hand seized the bridle of a horse
that was bearing a strange boy along the road, which ran near the river.

The horse reared back on its haunches, frightened at the sudden halting.

"The dam!" cried the young girl again. "Quick! The people must be
warned!"

The face of the rider turned white.

"What do you mean?" he shouted, fear stamped on every feature.

Shirley's excitement fell from her like a cloak. She became quiet.

"The Darret dam has been washed away," she answered, "and unless the
people in the valley are warned immediately they will perish. There is
one chance to save them. You are mounted. You can outrun the oncoming
wall of water and save them. Away with you, quick! There is not a second
to spare!"

"But," protested the boy, "the water may overtake me and I shall drown.
We can climb to higher ground here and be safe."

He tried to turn his horse's head to the east. But Shirley clung to the
rein.

"And leave those people to drown, without warning?" she cried. "You
coward! You are afraid!"

"I----" the boy began, but Shirley cut his protest short.

Releasing the bridle of the horse, she sprang quickly to the side of the
animal, seized the rider by the leg with both her strong, young hands
and pulled quickly and vigorously. Unprepared for such action, the boy
came tumbling to the ground in a sprawling heap.

Quick as a flash Shirley leaped to the saddle and turned the horse's
head toward the valley. As she dug her heels into the animal's ribs,
sending him forward with a jump, she called over her shoulder to the
boy, who sat still dazed at the sudden danger:

"Get to safety the best way you can, you coward!"

Under the firm touch of the girl's hand on the rein the horse sped on
down the valley.

It was a mad race with death and Shirley knew it. But she realized that
human lives were at stake and she did not hesitate.

To the left of the road down which she sped lay high ground and safety,
while coming down the valley, perhaps a mile in the rear, poured a dense
wall of water, coming as swift as the wind.

For days the Mississippi and its tributaries had been rising rapidly and
steadily. Along the lowlands in that part of the state of Illinois, just
south of Cairo, where Shirley Willing had been visiting friends, fears
that the Darret dam, three miles up one of these tributary streams,
would give way, had been entertained.

Some families, therefore, had moved their perishable belongings to
higher ground, where they would be beyond the sweep of the waters should
the dam break.

Then suddenly, without warning, the dam had gone.

The home where Shirley had been visiting was a farmhouse, and the cry of
danger had been received by telephone. Those in the house had been asked
to repeat the warning to families further down the valley. But the
fierce wind that was raging had, at almost that very moment, blown down
all wires.

Shirley, in spite of the fact that she, with the others, could easily
have reached the safety afforded by higher ground a short distance away,
had thought only of those whose lives would be snuffed out if they were
not warned.

She had decided that she would warn them herself. She ran from the house
to the stable, where one single horse had been left.

But the seriousness of the situation seemed to have been carried to the
animal, and when Shirley had attempted to slip a bridle over his head he
struck out violently with his fore feet. As the girl sprang back, he
dashed from the stable.

Shirley ran after him and followed him into the road. There she
encountered a rider; and the conversation with which this story begins
took place.

As the girl sped down the road, she could hear from far behind, the roar
of the waters as they came tumbling after her.

A farmhouse came into sight. A man, a woman and several children came
out, attracted by the galloping hoofbeats. Without checking the speed of
her mount a single instant, Shirley guided the horse close to them.

