THE LANDSLIDE
“Whether that’s so or not,” said the trembling Horace, “I feel that I’ve learned a lesson. I own up that I’m terribly afraid of lightning; but after this I’m going to face it, even if I have to lie out in the storm, rather than take chances.”
It became difficult to carry on any sort of conversation, what with all the racket around them. The wind blew, the rain fell in sheets, and the thunder boomed so continuously that one deep-toned roll hardly died away before there would come another crash that made everybody start.
Still they were a thankful lot of boys as they lay under the ledges and counted the minutes creep past.
“We’ve managed to keep our jackets tolerably dry after all,” announced Josh, at a time when there happened to be a little slackening of the gale; “and that’s what everybody couldn’t have done under the same conditions.”
“Well, I should say not,” another scout declared; “I know lots of fellows who think themselves extra smart around town, and yet put them up here and they’d either have been knocked out hiding under a tree that was struck, or else soaked through to the skin.”
“It takes scouts to figure things out when the supreme test comes,” said Josh.
“Yes, some scouts,” added Felix, drily; as much as to tell Josh not to plume himself too highly, because this was not his bright thought.
A more terrific peal of thunder than any they had yet heard except that one outburst, stopped their talking for a brief time.
“I really believe the old storm is coming back to try it all over again!” cried Billy Button, in dismay.
“They often seem to do that,” remarked another boy. “That has puzzled me more’n I can tell. What’s the explanation, Mr. Witherspoon?”
“Well, as near as I can say,” replied the scout master, “it’s something like this. Most storms have a regular rotary movement as well as their forward drift. On that account a hurricane at sea has a core or center, where there is almost a dead clam.”
“Yes, I’ve read about that,” interrupted Josh. “Sea captains always mention it when they’ve found themselves in the worst of a big blow. It slackens up, and then comes on again worse than ever.”
“But always from exactly the opposite quarter,” the scout master continued.
“You can see how this is, for the wind coming from the east up to the time the core of the gale strikes them, is from the west after the center has passed by. We may be about to get the other side of this little storm now.”
“Listen to it roaring, up on the mountain?” cried Horace.
“I wonder what those other fellows are doing about now?” Josh was heard to say, in a speculative way.
“Of course you mean Tony Pollock and his crowd,” observed Tom. “Unless they’ve been as lucky as we were they’re feeling pretty damp ground this time. Still Tony is a shrewd fellow, and may have discovered some sort of shelter before the downpour came.”
“I hope so,” Horace went on to say, for he was not at all cruel by disposition; “because I wouldn’t want a dog to be out in this blow, much less boys I’ve known all my life, even if they have been an ugly lot.”
There was a short interval of violent downpour. Then all at once the storm again slackened, and soon the rain ceased.
Horace had been whispering to Tom, and the pair of them now started to crawl out from under the shelter.
“Where are you going, Tom?” asked Josh, wondering what the strange move meant.
“Just mean to take a little walk over here,” was the reply; “we’ll be back in a few minutes. Horace is curious to see if it was the big oak that was struck.”
“I’ll go along, if you don’t object,” said the always ready Josh.
“Me too,” called out a second scout.
Accordingly several of them followed Tom and Horace out from under the ledges. There were at least six in the group that hurried along toward the spot where the splendid oak had been noticed an hour before.
They were compelled to pick their way along, for little streams of water flowed in almost every direction; besides, the trees were shedding miniature Niagaras that would be very unpleasant if received in the back of the neck by any one passing underneath.
In this fashion they neared the place. Every boy was keenly on the lookout.
“Why, I don’t see anything at all of the tree, and yet it certainly stood high above those smaller ones over there!” exclaimed Horace, presently, with a curious little quiver of awe in his voice.
Ten seconds later they had advanced far enough to pass the barrier formed by those lesser forest trees. Then the entire group of scouts came to a sudden stop and simply stared. Horace even rubbed his eyes as if he half believed he might be dreaming.
The big oak was gone!
Where it had stood they saw a shattered trunk not more than twenty feet high. Upon the ground in every direction lay torn and twisted limbs and smaller branches, just as they had been violently hurled when that terrible electric bolt struck with such amazing force.
“Whew!” gasped Josh, “there’s an object lesson for you, Horace!”
“It’s the same for each one of us,” added Tom, gravely; “and for every scout who ever hears of it.”
“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 passed over them when the trembling sensation became even more pronounced. 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 assume 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!”