Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber’s Notes:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

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THE Safety First Club _and_ the Flood

BY
W. T. NICHOLS

_Author of_ “THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB”

Illustrated by
F. A. ANDERSON

THE PENN PUBLISHING
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA
1917

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COPYRIGHT 1917 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY

The Safety First Club and the Flood.

Introduction

The one school which never needs a truant officer is the School of Experience. Whether we like it or not, we have to go to this school, all of us; but whether we shall profit by its lessons or waste the instruction is wholly a matter of our own choice. In this story Sam Parker and his friends, some of whose experiences have been earlier set forth in the first volume of this series, “The Safety First Club,” take a new course, so to speak, with resultant profit to themselves. “The Safety First Club and the Flood” finds this group of boys, and especially its leader, Sam, worried, beset and tried by problems new to them, perplexing, baffling; not very grave problems, at first glance, but serious enough in the eyes of the boys and not unimportant in their consequences--a phase of life, in short, which has very direct concern to young or old.

Sam learns his lesson; his mates learn theirs. Incidentally, they undergo trials of the flesh and of the spirit, and are the better for both. They meet adventure which, it is hoped, will be found to the taste of the friends the chums have made and may make through this volume and those which are to follow it.

Contents

I. THE CLUB CONFERS 9

II. VARLEY GETS ACQUAINTED 24

III. UNCOMFORTABLE GLORY 39

IV. SAM’S COUNSELLOR 60

V. SNOW-SHOES 73

VI. A LITTLE LUNCH 92

VII. THE SHARK LECTURES 105

VIII. POKE’S MYSTERY 117

IX. SAM GETS A REMINDER 133

X. THE BLOW DESCENDS 148

XI. THE GREAT MINCE PIE OF SUGAR VALLEY 163

XII. EXPLORING THE VALLEY 185

XIII. THE SHARK DEMONSTRATES 202

XIV. THE HUNT 220

XV. THE HOUSE OF REFUGE 237

XVI. BLIND TRAILS 256

XVII. THE RISING FLOOD 272

XVIII. THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT 288

XIX. WHAT BEFELL POKE AND STEP 309

XX. THE PRIZE SNATCHED FROM THE FLOOD 326

XXI. POKE OUT OF BONDAGE 346

Illustrations

PAGE

HIS NEW COMRADE WAS RACING ACROSS THE FIELDS _Frontispiece_

“GRIN AND BEAR IT” 70

“YOU CAN’T RAISE THE MONEY” 160

ANOTHER OF HIS PRECIOUS MATCHES 248

“WE’LL HAVE TO DRIFT ASHORE SOMEWHERE” 320

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The Safety First Club and the Flood