The Boy Scouts of Lenox Part 18

"Supposing we had taken refuge under that fine old oak," suggested Felix, with a shrug of his shoulders; "not one of us would have ever known what hit him."

"I've seen all I want to, Tom; let us go back," said Horace, who looked rather white by now. "Besides, I think it's going to pour down again shortly."

"That's right," added another scout; "you can hear it coming over there. Everybody scoot for the home base."

They lost no time in retracing their steps, and just managed to reach the friendly shelter of the ledges when the rain did come down, if anything harder than ever.

"There'll be a big boom in the river after this!" remarked Felix, when the rain had been falling in a deluge for ten minutes.

"I think it must be next door to what they call a cloud burst; wouldn't you say so, Mr. Witherspoon?" asked another boy.

"It seems like it," he was told by the scout master. "Meantime we ought to be very thankful we're so well provided for. No danger of being floated away this far up on the mountain. But the rain is going to stop presently."

"Getting softer already!" announced the watchful Josh.

"I didn't have any chance to ask you about the big oak?" Mr.

Witherspoon continued.

"There isn't any," remarked Felix; "only a wreck that would make you hold your breath and rub your eyes."

"Then it was struck by that terrible bolt, was it?" asked the scout master.

"Smashed, into flinders," replied Josh. "You never in all your life saw such a wreck, sir."

"We'll all take a glance at it before we leave this place," the leader of the hiking troop told them. "But from the way things look there's a good chance we may think it best to put in the night right here, where we can be sure of a dry place for sleeping."

"That strikes me as a good idea, sir," said Tom, promptly, for he had been considering proposing that very plan himself, though of course he did not see fit to say so now.

"All I hope is that the river doesn't sweep away a part of Lenox," one of the boys was heard to say. "You remember that years ago, before any of us can remember, they had a bad flood, and some lives were lost."

"Oh yes, but that was in the spring," explained Josh, "when the heavy snows melted, and what with ten days of rain the ground couldn't take up any more water. It's a whole lot different in June. Besides, we've been having it pretty hot and dry lately, remember, and the earth can drink up a lot of water."

"Still, you never can tell what a flood will do," George was heard to say; but as they all understood his way of looking at the worst side of things none of the other boys took much stock in his gloomy predictions.

"We must hustle to find some dry wood, so as to cook our supper, and keep warm afterwards," Felix told them.

"Leave us alone to do that," Josh announced. "No matter how hard it has been raining you can always get plenty of dry stuff out of the heart of a stump or a log. And thank goodness we brought an ax along with us."

"Say, did you feel anything then?" called out one of the other boys.

"Seemed to me the rocks might be trembling as they did when it thundered extra loud. There it goes again! Get that, fellows?"

They certainly did, and a thrill of wonder and sudden anxiety pa.s.sed over them when the trembling sensation became even more p.r.o.nounced.

Then they realized that a strange rumbling sound had arisen. It came from further up the mountain, and yet drew rapidly closer, increasing in intensity, until it began to a.s.sume the proportions of a terrible roaring, while the rocks vibrated in a sickening way.

"Oh! it must be an earthquake!" shrilled one scout, in alarm.

"Lie still, everybody!" shouted Mr. Witherspoon; "don't think of crawling out. It's a landslide coming down the side of the mountain!"

CHAPTER XVIII

CAMPING ON THE LAKE Sh.o.r.e

For several minutes the scouts lay there and fairly held their breath in the grip of that sudden fear that had come upon them. As the rumbling noise and the sickening sensation of the rock trembling under them pa.s.sed away they regained in some degree their former confidence.

"The worst is over, I think," said Mr. Witherspoon; "but we'll stay where we are a while longer."

Content to abide by his judgment, and glad that they had escaped being caught in that avalanche of earth and rocks, the boys kept quiet until finally, as there was no repet.i.tion of the landslide, they were allowed to issue forth.

Investigation showed them where the slip had occurred. Some fault in the formation of the mountain side had allowed it to happen, the conditions being just right.

Later on the rest of the scouts went over to view the wrecked oak, bringing back some of the splinters of wood to use in making the fire they expected to have going presently.

Considering the two narrow escapes they had pa.s.sed through recently, one from lightning and the other from the avalanche, the boys all felt that they had reason to be thankful.

"You'll have some remarkable things to set down in that log book of yours for this particular day, Tom," said the scout master; "and I think you can do the subject justice. I hope to read an account of this trip in print one of these days."

"Oh! there's a small chance of my account taking the first prize, I'm afraid Mr. Witherspoon," laughed the leader of the Black Bear Patrol; "I imagine there'll be scores of compet.i.tors in the race, and plenty of them can write things just as well as I can, perhaps even better."

"Yes," remarked Josh, "but don't forget that every account of an outing trip has to be absolutely true. No wonderful imaginary stories will be allowed in the compet.i.tion, the rules said."

"Yes, that's just what they did state," added Felix; "you've got to have things authenticated--wasn't that the word the paper used?"

"Attested to in due form by the scout master who accompanied the troop," Mr. Witherspoon explained, smiling; "and in this case I can do that with an easy conscience."

"And if things keep going as they have been lately," declared another boy, "there never was and never can be a trip so crowded with interesting happenings as this same hike of Lenox Troop over Big Bear Mountain."

The fire was made without any particular trouble, just as Josh and some of the others had predicted. The boys knew how to get dry fuel out of the heart of a stump, and once the fire was roaring it hardly mattered what kind of wood was used, since the heat quickly dried it out.

Then supper was cooked as usual, only on this occasion they dispensed with some of the conditions that were not absolutely necessary, such as having two separate fires.

On the whole they managed to get on, and every one admitted he could dispose of no more when finally the meal was concluded.

Later on the boys sat around, and while most of them compared notes regarding their experiences during the exciting day just closed, others proceeded to attend to certain duties they did not wish to postpone any longer.

As for Tom Chesney, it was an aim with him to write out his account of daily events while they were still fresh in his mind. He was afraid many of the little details might be forgotten if he delayed; and in the end those were what would give most of the charm to the narrative of the scout doings.

The storm had pa.s.sed on, and above them they saw the stars peeping out once more. Long into the night the steady drip of water could be heard, telling of numerous little rivulets that still ran down the side of Big Bear Mountain, though by morning most of these would have dried up.

They slept under the friendly ledges. It was, after all was said, a pretty "rocky" bed, as Josh termed it; but since the ground outside was so well soaked, and there was always more or less peril in the shape of another landslide, none of the boys complained, or expressed his feelings in more than sundry grunts.

With the coming of morning the strange camp was astir, and one by one the boys painfully crawled out, to try to get some of the stiffness from their limbs by jumping around and "skylarking."

About nine o'clock the hike was resumed Mr. Witherspoon did not think it advisable to go on up the mountain any further after that avalanche; he believed they would have just as good a time pa.s.sing around the base, and in the end making a complete circuit of the high elevation.

The day turned out to be a delightful one after the storm. It seemed as though the air had been purified, and even in the middle of the day it was not unpleasantly warm.