CHAPTER XV
MAKING PORT IN A STORM
"Did you ever see a blacker, more peculiar looking cloud comingthan that one?" demanded Tom Reade, as the high school boys emergedfrom the gloom of a long, narrow forest road into comparativelyopen country.
"Is it a coming storm, or an optical delusion?" pondered Dick,halting and staring hard.
"It looks like pictures I've seen of water spouts," Greg declared.
"That's what it is," Dick replied quietly. "Though I've neverseen one before, it's hard to be fooled, for that chap looks justlike his published photographs. And look at that queer, brownish,half-yellowish sky back of it. It certainly looks forbidding."
"And we're going to have a stormy afternoon of it!" muttered Dave.
"The waterspout will go by to the north," Reade conjectured, studyingthe oddly-shaped, rapidly moving and twisting blackish cloud,"but we're going to be right in line with the main storm thatis traveling with it."
"And we've got to prepare against the weather, too!" Dick cried,with sudden realization. "Fellows, the storm that is coming downon us isn't going to be any toy zephyr!"
After leaving Ashbury the boys had decided to return to Gridleyby a different road.
"There's the place for us, if we can make it!" cried Dick an instantlater, pointing toward the slope.
"Dave, whip up the horse. He has to travel fast for his own safety.Tom and Greg, you get behind and push the wagon up the slope.We'll all help in turn. But hustle!"
The crest of the rise of ground being made, the boys found themselvesentering another forest. Dick here found the ground as favorableto his purpose as he had hoped it would be, for on the furtherside the land sloped downward again, and was well-wooded.
"Drive in there!" called Prescott, pointing, then ran ahead tofind the best spot for pitching the tent.
"Whoa!" yelled Prescott, when he had reached the spot that hejudged would do best for camp purposes. "Now, Dave, go over tothe other side of the horse! Help me to get him out of the shafts.The poor animal must be our first consideration, for he can'thelp himself. The rest of you unload all the stuff from the wagonas fast as you can move."
Slipping the harness from the horse, Dick fastened a halter securely,then ran the horse down into a little gully where the animal wouldbe best protected from the force of the wind that would come withthe storm.
Driving a long iron stake into the ground, Dick tethered the animalsecurely. Then he ran back to help his chums.
"Here's the best site for the tent," Prescott called, snatchingup a stick and marking the site roughly. "Now, hustle! No; don'tuse the wooden stakes for the tent ropes. Drive the long ironstakes, and drive them deep!"
Then Prescott ran back with oats and corn for the horse, leavinga generous feed for the animal.
"You'll need plenty to eat, old fellow, for the storm is goingto be a long and cold one."
Then Prescott ran back at full speed to his chums who were erectingthe tent.
First, the four corner stakes were driven, and the guy-ropes madefast.
"Greg and Dan can drive all the other pins, if they hustle," Dickannounced. "Tom, you and Dave get the floor planks down, andrig up the stove---inside the tent."
"There won't be time to lay the flooring," Reade objected, takinga hurried squint at the now more threatening sky.
"There's got to be time to lay the flooring, unless you all wantto sleep in water to-night," Dick insisted. "Harry, just breakyour back with the loads of wood that you bring in. I'll fillall the buckets with water."
In ten minutes more everything had been carried inside the tent.Big drops of rain were beginning to patter down.
"We've everything ready just in time to the minute," Tom Readeobserved with a satisfied chuckle.
"Not everything quite ready," Prescott retorted. "Tom, if you'regoing to grow up to be an engineer there's one thing more youshould see the need of."
"What?" challenged Reade blankly.
"Get the pick and shovel! You and I will do it. Let the restget in under shelter!"
Standing in the rain, Tom and Dick hastily dug two ditches ateither end of the tent. These ditches were no creditable engineeringjobs, but they would, at need, carry a good deal of water downthe slope.
By this time the rain was falling heavily. In the distance heavythunder volleyed, and the sky was growing blacker every minute.
"One more job," called Dick. "Dave and Greg, tumble out withthe shelter flap!"
This was a great sheet of canvas that had to be fastened in placeover the tent roof, and at a different pitch.
"We'll be drowned before we get the shelter flap in place," grumbledTom.
"And we might as well be out in the rain, if we don't have itup," Dick retorted. "Open her up! Now, then---up with it!"
The shelter flap was placed with difficulty, for now the windwas driving across the country, blowing everything before it.The other two boys leaped out to help their chums. The shelterflap was made secure at last, the ropes being made fast to thesurrounding trees.
By this time the wind was blowing at the rate of fifty miles anhour. The sky was nearly as black as on a dark night, while therain was coming down "like another Niagara," as Harry Hazeltonput it.
"We don't care whether we have a dry tent or not, now," laughedDan Dalzell, as the six boys made a break for cover. "We're soaking,anyway, and a little more water won't hurt."
"I'll get a fire going in the stove," Dick smiled. "Soon afterthat we'll be dry enough---if the tent holds."
The stove was already in place, a sheet-iron pipe running up oneof the tent walls and out through a circular opening in the canvasof the side wall opposite from the wind.
While Dick was making the fire, Tom Reade filled, trimmed andlighted the two lanterns.
"Listen to the storm!" chuckled Prescott. "But we're comfy andcheery enough. Now, peel off your outer clothes and spread themon the campstools to dry by the fire. We'll soon be feeling ascheery as though we were traveling in a Pullman car."
Within a short time all six were dry and happy. The lightninghad come closer and closer, until now it flashed directly overhead,followed by heavy explosions of thunder.
Not one of the boys could remember a time when it had ever rainedas hard before. It seemed to them as though solid sheets of waterwere coming down. Yet the position of the tent, aided by theditches, kept their floor dry. Dan, peering out through the canvasdoorway, reported that the ditches were running water at fullcapacity.
"This will all be over in an hour," hazarded Greg.
"It may, and it may not be," Dick rejoined. "My own guess isthat the storm will last for hours."
As the howling wind gained in intensity it seemed as though thetent must be blown to ribbons, but stout canvas will standconsiderable weather strain.
"If we had driven the wooden pins for the guy-ropes," mutteredGreg, "everyone of them would have been washed loose by this time."
"They would have been," Dick assented, "and the tent would nowbe down upon our heads, a drenched wreck. As it is, I think wecan pull through a night of bad weather."
In an hour the flashes of lightning had become less frequent.The wind had abated slightly, but there was no cessation of thedownpour.
"I pity anyone who has to travel the highway in this storm," mutteredDave. "This isn't weather for human beings."
"Yet every bird of the air has to weather it," observed Hazelton.
"Yes," muttered Tom, "and a good many of the birds of the airwill be killed in this storm, too."
Night came down early. The wind and rain had sent the temperaturedown until it seemed to the high school boys more like an Octobernight. The warmth and light in the tent were highly gratifyingto all.
"As long as the tent holds I can't think of a blessed thing wehave to go outside for," sighed Reade contentedly.
"We don't have to," laughed Dick. "Fellows, we're away off inthe wilderness, but we're as happy as we could
be in a palace.How about supper?"
That idea was approved instantly.
"We'll have two suppers to-night," proposed Tom. "That will bethe visible proof and expression of the highest happiness thatcan be reached on a night like this."
Even by ten o'clock that night there was no abatement in the volumeof rain falling. The wind still howled.
"Are we going to turn in, soon?" inquired Dave.
"My vote," announced Tom indolently, "is for another supper, andturn in at perhaps two o'clock in the morning."
"I second the motion---as far as another supper goes," chimedin Danny Grin.
"It wants to be a supper of piping hot stuff, too," declared Greg."It's warm here in the tent, but the surrounding world is chilland drear. Nothing but hot food will serve us."
Preparations for the meal were quickly under way.
"I hope everyone within the reach of this storm is as comfortableas we are," murmured Hazelton.
"Why, we're so happy, we could entertain company with a relish,"laughed Reade.
"Say, what was that?" demanded Greg.
From outside came a faint sound as of someone stealthily gropingabout outside in the storm.
"Bring a lantern, quickly!" called Dick, going toward the tentdoor.
As Greg played the rays of light against the darkness outside,Dick suddenly sprang forth into the dark. Then he returned, bearingin his arms the pitiful little figure of old Reuben Hinman, thepeddler.
"Look at his head!" gasped Reade, in horror, as Prescott enteredwith the burden.
From a gash over the peddler's left temple blood was flowing,leaving its dark trail over the peddler's light brown coat.
Dick carried the stricken old man straight to his own cot, layinghim there gently.
"Who can have done this deed?" gasped Greg, throbbing with sympathyfor the poor old man.
Outside other approaching steps sounded. Dave and Tom, snatchingup sticks of firewood, sprang forward.
The High School Boys' Training Hike Page 15