Chapter 15. Making Port In A Storm

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_ CHAPTER XV. 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. _

Read next: Chapter 16. Home, Hospital And Almshouse

Read previous: Chapter 14. Dick & Co. Make An Apple "Pie"

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