A SUDDEN STORM
The canvas that covered the sleeping Meadow-Brook Girls was suddenly lifted from them, then whipped back with a force that nearly knocked the breath out of some of them.
A chorus of yells greeted the giant slap of the canvas, and a bevy of girls rolled and scrambled out of the way.
"Hold it down, or we shall lose it," cried Harriet, her voice barely heard in the roar of the wind. But no one of the party seemed inclined to act as an anchor for the canvas, which was rolled, then whisked out of sight.
"There, now you have done it!" shouted Crazy Jane McCarthy. "We sleep on the ground for the rest of the night!" A gust of wind had thrown Jane off her balance and knocked her down.
"Take hold of a tree," advised Harriet.
"I can't get to one," wailed Margery. "I can't walk."
"Creep," suggested Tommy shrilly.
"Yes, we must seek cover. I fear there will be rain soon," added Miss Elting. "This is an awful blow. I can feel the spray from the ocean."
"Will the ocean come up here?" questioned Margery apprehensively.
"No. Don't be foolish," answered Harriet. "But we shall get wet, all the same."
Half walking, half crawling, the Meadow-Brook Girls crept farther back among the small trees, through which the wind was shrieking and howling. They saw the campfire lifted from the ground and sent flying through the air, leaving a trail of starry sparks in its wake.
"There go the tents!" cried Miss Elting.
A medley of shouts and cries of alarm followed hard upon the guardian's words. A gust more severe than any that had preceded it, and of longer duration, had rooted up the weakened tent stakes or broken the guy ropes. A whole street of tents tipped over backward, leaving their occupants scrambling from their cots, now in the open air.
"Girls, see if you can lend the Wau-Wau girls assistance," commanded Miss Elting. "Hurry!"
About all that was necessary to get to the distressed campers was to let go of the trees to which the Meadow-Brook Girls had been clinging. The wind did the rest, and they brought up in confused heaps near and beyond the uncovered tents. Cots had been overturned by the sudden heavy squall, blankets and equipment blown away. The cook tent was down and the contents apparently a wreck.
"Cling to the trees! Never mind saving anything now!" cried Mrs. Livingston, whose tent had shared the same fate as those of her charges. "Take care of yourselves first. The squall is blowing itself out. It will soon pass."
Almost before the words were uttered, the gale subsided. A sudden hush fell over the camp. "There!" called Mrs. Livingston. "What did I tell you? Now, hurry and get the things together. Never mind sorting out your belongings. We must get some cover over us as soon as possible, for we are going to have rain."
The rain began in a spattering of heavy drops. The thunder of the surf was becoming louder and louder, for the sea had been lashed into foamy billows by the brief, though heavy, blow. The waves were now mounting the bluff back of the beach, leaving a white coating of creamy foam over a considerable part of the ground below the camp.
"Do you think it ith going to rain?" questioned Tommy.
"It is, my dear," answered Mrs. Livingston. "You had better prepare yourself for it."
"Yeth, I think tho, too. I think I will. I told the girlth what I would do. Here goeth." Tommy turned and ran toward the beach at full speed.
"Come back, Tommy! Where are you going!" called Miss Elting.
"I'm going to fool the rain. I'm going to get wet before the rain cometh."
"Maybe she is going to do as she said—jump into the ocean," suggested Margery Brown.
Harriet suddenly dropped the piece of canvas at which she had been tugging, and started after Tommy, who had already headed for the bluff, and was running with all her might, apparently to get into the water before the rain came down hard enough to soak her. The little lisping girl had no intention of getting into the water, knowing full well that by standing on the edge of the bluff a moment she could get a drenching that would be perfectly satisfactory so far as a thorough wetting was concerned. But even in this Harriet Burrell saw danger.
"Don't go near the edge, Tommy!" she shouted.
Tommy Thompson merely waved her hand and continued on. Nor did she halt until she had reached the edge of the bluff, having waded through the white foam with which the ground had been covered. She stood there, faintly outlined in the night, and with both hands thrown above her head as if she were about to dive, uttered a shrill little yell.
"Stop! Come back!" begged Harriet.
"I'm going to take a thwim," replied Tommy.
A great, dark roller came thundering in. It leaped up into the air, hovered an instant, then descended in an overwhelming flood right over the shivering figure of the little Meadow-Brook Girl standing on the edge of the bluff. Harriet had reached the scene just in time to get the full force of the downpour. Neither girl could speak, both were choking, when suddenly the ground gave way beneath their feet and they felt themselves slipping down and down until it seemed to Harriet as if they were going to the very bottom of the sea.
Now they were lifted from their feet. They were no longer slipping downward. Instead, they were being carried up and up until they were free from the choking pressure of the water, and once more were breathing the free, though misty, salt air of the sea.
"Oh, thave me!" wailed Tommy.
"I'll try. I don't know. We have been carried out to sea by a receding wave. The bank gave way. Oh, what a foolish girl you are! Swim! Swim with all your might! We shall have to fight hard. We may not be able to save ourselves as it is. Swim toward the shore!"
"Whi—ch way ith the thhore?" wailed Tommy.
"I don't know. I can't see. I think it must be that way." She placed a firm grip on Tommy's shoulder, turning the smaller girl about, heading her toward what Harriet Burrell believed to be the shore. She wondered why she could see no light over there, having forgotten that the campfire had been blown away in the squall.
The two girls now began to swim with all their might. It seemed to them, in their anxiety, as if they had been swimming for hours. Harriet finally ceased swimming and lay floating with a slight movement of her arms.
"What ith it?" questioned Grace.
"I don't know."
"But you thee thomething, don't you?"
"That is the worst of it. I do not. Look sharp. Can you make out anything that looks like the shore?"
"I thee a light! I thee a light!" cried Tommy delightedly.
"Yes; I see it now. That must be on the shore. We have been going in the wrong direction. Swim with all your might!"
For a few moments they did swim, strongly and with long overhand strokes, Tommy and Harriet keeping close together, Harriet ever watchful that a swell did not carry her little companion from her. They had made considerable progress, but still the shore seemed to have disappeared from view. The light that Tommy had discovered had gone out. At least, it was no longer to be seen. Harriet stopped swimming, and, raising herself as high as possible out of the water, again and again took quick surveys of their surroundings. The seas were heavier and less broken where they now were. Slowly it dawned upon Harriet Burrell that they were in deep water. She raised her voice in a long-drawn shout. Both listened. No sound save the swish of the water about them was to be heard. The wind had not come up again, but a fresh, salty breeze was blowing over them, chilling the girls, sending shivers through their slender bodies.
"Oh, what thhall we do?" sobbed Grace. "What can we do to thave ourthelveth?"
"I don't know, Tommy. About all we can do is to keep up our courage and wait for daylight. We must keep moving as well as we can, or we shall get so cold that we shall perish."
"Wait until daylight? Oh, thave me! I thall die—I thurely thall. Thave me, Harriet!"
"Keep up your courage, darling. We are far from being goners yet, but we have before us a night that will call for all the courage we possess. Now pull yourself together and be a brave little girl."
"I don't want to be brave; I want to go home," wailed Grace.
"So do I, and we shall go as soon as we are able to see where home is," answered Harriet, forcing a laugh.
"Then why don't you go?"
"I can't."
"I'm going." Tommy began to swim. Harriet propelled herself up to her companion and grasped her by an arm.
"Tommy, you must obey me! You don't know where you are going. You may be swimming out to sea for all you know. Be a good girl and save your strength. The night may become lighter later on, then we shall manage to reach the shore somehow."
"But why don't you go now?"
"Because I don't know where the shore is, dearie. We are lost, just as much lost as if we were in the middle of the Atlantic," answered Harriet solemnly.