"Listen! is that somebody shouting?" cried Frank, after they had run
along the road in a southerly direction for half a mile.
"Sounds like it to me," ventured Will, between pants for breath.
"Now, on my part," declared Bluff, "I thought it must be the screech of
a locomotive; because, you know, there's a railroad line on both sides
of the river right along up here."
"But there it is again," Frank insisted; "and you can make out yelling
now."
"Yes, and it comes out of there, away back from the river. See here,
Frank," observed Jerry, "we just can't plunge into the woods, and make
for that fire; can we?"
"Now, my opinion is, there might be some other cross-road below here,
and the fire is on that," said Frank; "we'll go a piece further, anyhow,
and find out."
The others were quite willing to do anything Frank proposed, and so they
again started to run at quite a good pace.
It turned out just as he said; for about half a mile further down they
suddenly came on a road that left the river highway, and turned abruptly
into the hills. Besides, they could now see the fire itself, which, as
usual, did not seem to be so very far away; though Frank knew how
deceptive distances were apt to prove under such conditions.
Turning into this smaller road, they kept on running. Now and then Frank
would drop into a walk, for he knew that Will must be tiring, though the
other would never have admitted the fact if he dropped in his tracks
with fatigue.
"Further than we thought, fellows!" gasped Bluff, who had to carry a
heavy gun, and by now he almost wished he had left it on the boat.
"But now we've come this far we'd better keep on; eh, Frank?" suggested
Jerry.
On that score the chums seemed to be agreed. Like all boys, they
disliked very much to give up anything they had started to accomplish.
All that hard running would go for nothing; and they were naturally
curious to learn what sort of a fire it could be.
"A barn, I reckon," Jerry had said.
"Perhaps it's only a chicken coop," Will had in his turn mentioned.
"Now, I'd think it more likely a pig pen," observed the weary Bluff, as
he changed his gun from one hand to the other for the twentieth time,
refusing to let Frank relieve him of it.
"Jerry is right, according to my way of thinking," Frank said. "The
chances are that's what it is. Perhaps it looked at one time as if the
fire would jump to the farmer's barn, too, and that was what all that
shouting meant."
They finally drew closer to the scene, though Frank feared they had gone
twice as far as seemed wise, under the circumstances.
It was fully an hour after they had left the houseboat before they
reached the place; and then it was to find the fire about out; with a
dozen men, and as many women and children, gathered in clusters, talking
it all over with the man who had lost his barns, and what new crop of
hay he had just been putting in them, together with several cows that
could not be rescued in time.
The boys hung around for a little while talking with some of the farm
hands. Frank asked a few questions about various things, and even found
that he could secure a small amount of information concerning the river
below that point, since some of these young fellows had lived near it
all their lives, and even taken boats of produce to Rock Island below.
An hour later, and Frank proposed that they start back to the boat.
While the boys were engaged in listening to all that was being said
concerning the fire, the sky had clouded over, and it was now quite
dark. Indeed, the growl of thunder could be heard down the river, and
some of the farmers were even then hurrying off.
One fellow, who happened to live not a great way from the location of
the houseboat, as described by Frank, said he would keep company with
the boys, in whose trip down the big water he seemed to be deeply
interested. And while they thought little of that fact at the time, it
afterwards turned out worth a great deal to them.
Louder came that noise from behind them, the storm having swung across
the river apparently, so that it was now heading almost from the south
direct. Will doubtless wished deep down in his heart that he was snug
inside the cabin of the houseboat about that time, when the gale would
have small terrors for any of them. But he did not say a word along
those lines, only ran at the heels of the others, doing the very best he
could.
"She's going to catch us, boys!" remarked the young farmer, who had
given them his name as Seth Groggins.
"Could we find any sort of shelter?" asked Bluff--and then, as if
fearing that his motive might be misconstrued, he hastened to add: "not
that I care a cent whether I get wet or not; but I'd hate to have my gun
soaked. Steel rusts so easy, you know."
"Might get under a big tree that lies a little way ahead," remarked
Seth; "only I've heard it isn't the best thing to do in a thunderstorm."
"No, I'd rather stand many duckings than take chances that way," Frank
declared, positively; for he had known of fatal cases following the
action of men in a harvest field seeking shelter under a tree during an
electrical storm.
"Well, here she is; but as you say so, we'll give her the go-by," the
farmer called out over his shoulder, as he ran on past the big tree,
standing close to the road. "If we could only make the old lime kiln I
reckons as how the lot of us'd be able to find some sorter shelter thar.
It's jest a leeetle way further on, boys. Hit it up agin; kin ye?"
Even Will seemed to take another brace, for the din of the storm behind
was surely enough to make any fellow try his level best to get out of
its reach. What with the roar of the wind, the sound of falling trees,
the terrible crash of the thunder accompanying each vivid flash of
lightning, and the roar of the deluge of rain that followed, no one need
be ashamed for wanting to find a place of refuge.
The rain began to come, and the boys would soon have been drenched to
the skin only, as luck would have it, they reached the deserted lime
kiln just then, and were able to hastily crawl under a low shed.
Although this threatened to carry away bodily with the fierce gusts of
wind, approaching the force of a tornado at times, it seemed to have
been sturdily built in the first place; and was also somewhat sheltered
by the kiln, so that it managed to withstand the gale.
And thankful that they had found even so poor a shelter, the boys
crouched there, waiting for the fury of the storm to subside, when they
might go on their way to the moored houseboat, not more than half a mile
off, Frank believed.
"Wow! listen to that; would you?" cried Bluff, as a crash followed a
blinding flash of lightning, although the rain had now stopped.
"That hit something, sure!" quavered Will, who had no fancy for such a
terrible display of electrical force.
"Say, I wouldn't be surprised if that big tree got it thet 'ere time!"
declared the farmer. "Kim right from thet ways; an' she lies thar. An',
by hokey, I thort I ketched a crash o' branches as the ole lightnin'
stripped her bare, like it does, sometimes."
Frank was of the same opinion; and felt deeply grateful in his heart
that they had been wise enough to give that shelter the go-by when it
offered. If it was really the big tree that had been struck, what would
have been their fate had they foolishly taken refuge under its
wide-spreading limbs?
As Frank had truly said: far better a wet jacket any time, than to take
chances under a tree that seems to especially invite the attention of
the lightning, either by its being alone in a field, or standing higher
than its fellows.
A short time later, and they once more started along the flooded road.
All of them were wet, but made light of it, in view of the fact that
they had managed to get off so lightly. And this was the first occasion
Frank found for feeling glad the young Illinois farmer had accompanied
them; since otherwise they would not have known about the shed at the
old lime kiln.
The storm had gone raging up the river, and far in the distance they
could still hear the dull roar of the thunder peals, and see the flash
of each successive bolt of lightning, as it either passed from one cloud
to another, or else sought the earth in a zigzag downward plunge that
was most terrifying.
"I guess we ought to call ourselves lucky for once," Jerry was saying,
as they left the river road, and headed through the patch of timber,
just beyond which all of them knew the boat had been left, securely
fastened.
The young farmer kept along with them. He had told Frank that he would
like to see for himself just how they were fixed; and had promised in
the morning to fetch them a supply of fresh eggs, some newly-made
butter, and milk from his Jersey cows.
"An' ev'ry night you jest tie up alongside the bank, you say?" he
remarked, as he kept at the side of Jerry, with regard to whom he seemed
to have taken an especial fancy, for some reason or other.
"Why, yes, that's the easiest way of doing with a houseboat, which,
after all, is pretty much the same as one of your shantyboats, used to
carry potatoes and truck down to market," Frank had taken it upon
himself to answer.
"Now, here's just where we had our camp fire," Bluff, who was in
advance, remarked. "It got squdged by that downpour of rain, all right,
I should say. And here you see, we tied the--Frank, Frank, _she's
gone!_" he suddenly ended with an excited yell, as he saw the well-known
spot where the _Pot Luck_ had been moored, vacant, and not the first
sign of their floating home.
Will clung to Frank in the first shock of his dismay; while Jerry echoed
the loud cries of the first discoverer of this new calamity that seemed
to have overtaken them.