“Oh! what is this?” bellowed Bumpus, who seemed to be almost smothered under the folds of his blanket, which he must have had up over his head at the time the catastrophe came upon them.
“It’s a hurricane, that’s what, and our bally old tent has been carried away!” shouted Giraffe. “Hang on to anything you can grab, fellers, or you may be taken next! Whoop! let her come! I’ve got hold of a tree now!”
“Not much you have,” remarked Thad, “that’s my leg you’re hanging on to. Let go, and we’ll soon find out what happened.”
“Ain’t it a storm after all then?” demanded Step Hen, as he came creeping out under the canvas of the back of the one tent that had been left standing, with most of his clothes hugged tightly in his grip, as though he did not mean to be utterly left without something to keep him warm, if the worst had befallen them.
Thad had by now gleaned an inkling of the truth. And it was so utterly ridiculous that he felt as though he must soon burst into peals of laughter.
“First tell me if anybody was hurt?” he demanded, feeling that it would be wrong to show any merriment if such should prove to be the case.
“I don’t know,” remarked Giraffe; “seemed to me something heavy came squash down on top of me like a thousand of bricks. Mebbe it was only the tent pole falling. Guess I ain’t hurt much.”
“How about you, Allan?” asked Thad, hardly thinking it worth while to ask Bumpus, who seemed to be all right; though he was already beginning to dance around, as the nipping fingers of Jack Frost got busy with his thinly covered shanks, about which he had only his flimsy pajamas over his underclothes.
“Never happened to step on me, though he came within three inches of my back!” replied the Maine boy; and there was something about his words to tell that Allan must already have guessed what had been the cause for all this commotion, and the stealing of their tent.