MAKING PORT IN A STORM
"Did you ever see a blacker, more peculiar looking cloud coming
than that one?" demanded Tom Reade, as the high school boys emerged
from the gloom of a long, narrow forest road into comparatively
open 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 never
seen one before, it's hard to be fooled, for that chap looks just
like 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, studying
the oddly-shaped, rapidly moving and twisting blackish cloud,
"but we're going to be right in line with the main storm that
is traveling with it."
"And we've got to prepare against the weather, too!" Dick cried,
with sudden realization. "Fellows, the storm that is coming down
on us isn't going to be any toy zephyr!"
After leaving Ashbury the boys had decided to return to Gridley
by a different road.
"There's the place for us, if we can make it!" cried Dick an instant
later, 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 themselves
entering another forest. Dick here found the ground as favorable
to his purpose as he had hoped it would be, for on the further
side the land sloped downward again, and was well-wooded.
"Drive in there!" called Prescott, pointing, then ran ahead to
find the best spot for pitching the tent.
"Whoa!" yelled Prescott, when he had reached the spot that he
judged would do best for camp purposes. "Now, Dave, go over to
the 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't
help himself. The rest of you unload all the stuff from the wagon
as 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 would
be best protected from the force of the wind that would come with
the storm.
Driving a long iron stake into the ground, Dick tethered the animal
securely. Then he ran back to help his chums.
"Here's the best site for the tent," Prescott called, snatching
up a stick and marking the site roughly. "Now, hustle! No; don't
use the wooden stakes for the tent ropes. Drive the long iron
stakes, and drive them deep!"
Then Prescott ran back with oats and corn for the horse, leaving
a generous feed for the animal.
"You'll need plenty to eat, old fellow, for the storm is going
to be a long and cold one."
Then Prescott ran back at full speed to his chums who were erecting
the tent.
First, the four corner stakes were driven, and the guy-ropes made
fast.
"Greg and Dan can drive all the other pins, if they hustle," Dick
announced. "Tom, you and Dave get the floor planks down, and
rig up the stove---inside the tent."
"There won't be time to lay the flooring," Reade objected, taking
a hurried squint at the now more threatening sky.
"There's got to be time to lay the flooring, unless you all want
to sleep in water to-night," Dick insisted. "Harry, just break
your back with the loads of wood that you bring in. I'll fill
all 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 Reade
observed with a satisfied chuckle.
"Not everything quite ready," Prescott retorted. "Tom, if you're
going to grow up to be an engineer there's one thing more you
should see the need of."
"What?" challenged Reade blankly.
"Get the pick and shovel! You and I will do it. Let the rest
get in under shelter!"
Standing in the rain, Tom and Dick hastily dug two ditches at
either end of the tent. These ditches were no creditable engineering
jobs, but they would, at need, carry a good deal of water down
the slope.
By this time the rain was falling heavily. In the distance heavy
thunder volleyed, and the sky was growing blacker every minute.
"One more job," called Dick. "Dave and Greg, tumble out with
the shelter flap!"
This was a great sheet of canvas that had to be fastened in place
over the tent roof, and at a different pitch.
"We'll be drowned before we get the shelter flap in place," grumbled
Tom.
"And we might as well be out in the rain, if we don't have it
up," Dick retorted. "Open her up! Now, then---up with it!"
The shelter flap was placed with difficulty, for now the wind
was driving across the country, blowing everything before it.
The other two boys leaped out to help their chums. The shelter
flap was made secure at last, the ropes being made fast to the
surrounding trees.
By this time the wind was blowing at the rate of fifty miles an
hour. The sky was nearly as black as on a dark night, while the
rain was coming down "like another Niagara," as Harry Hazelton
put it.
"We don't care whether we have a dry tent or not, now," laughed
Dan 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 after
that we'll be dry enough---if the tent holds."
The stove was already in place, a sheet-iron pipe running up one
of the tent walls and out through a circular opening in the canvas
of the side wall opposite from the wind.
While Dick was making the fire, Tom Reade filled, trimmed and
lighted the two lanterns.
"Listen to the storm!" chuckled Prescott. "But we're comfy and
cheery enough. Now, peel off your outer clothes and spread them
on the campstools to dry by the fire. We'll soon be feeling as
cheery as though we were traveling in a Pullman car."
Within a short time all six were dry and happy. The lightning
had 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 rained
as hard before. It seemed to them as though solid sheets of water
were coming down. Yet the position of the tent, aided by the
ditches, kept their floor dry. Dan, peering out through the canvas
doorway, reported that the ditches were running water at full
capacity.
"This will all be over in an hour," hazarded Greg.
"It may, and it may not be," Dick rejoined. "My own guess is
that the storm will last for hours."
As the howling wind gained in intensity it seemed as though the
tent must be blown to ribbons, but stout canvas will stand
considerable weather strain.
"If we had driven the wooden pins for the guy-ropes," muttered
Greg, "everyone of them would have been washed loose by this time."
"They would have been," Dick assented, "and the tent would now
be down upon our heads, a drenched wreck. As it is, I think we
can 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 the
downpour.
"I pity anyone who has to travel the highway in this storm," muttered
Dave. "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 air
will be killed in this storm, too."
Night came down early. The wind and rain had sent the temperature
down until it seemed to the high school boys more like an October
night. The warmth and light in the tent were highly gratifying
to all.
"As long as the tent holds I can't think of a blessed thing we
have to go outside for," sighed Reade contentedly.
"We don't have to," laughed Dick. "Fellows, we're away off in
the 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 be
the visible proof and expression of the highest happiness that
can be reached on a night like this."
Even by ten o'clock that night there was no abatement in the volume
of rain falling. The wind still howled.
"Are we going to turn in, soon?" inquired Dave.
"My vote," announced Tom indolently, "is for another supper, and
turn in at perhaps two o'clock in the morning."
"I second the motion---as far as another supper goes," chimed
in 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 chill
and 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 comfortable
as 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 groping
about outside in the storm.
"Bring a lantern, quickly!" called Dick, going toward the tent
door.
As Greg played the rays of light against the darkness outside,
Dick suddenly sprang forth into the dark. Then he returned, bearing
in his arms the pitiful little figure of old Reuben Hinman, the
peddler.
"Look at his head!" gasped Reade, in horror, as Prescott entered
with 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, laying
him there gently.
"Who can have done this deed?" gasped Greg, throbbing with sympathy
for the poor old man.
Outside other approaching steps sounded. Dave and Tom, snatching
up sticks of firewood, sprang forward.