“A land-slide!” exclaimed Giraffe, as he sat up, and began twisting his long neck around, as though doubtful whether he should dodge to the right or to the left, since it was difficult to locate the direction from whence the furious racket seemed to come.
“Better say an earthquake!” Step Hen managed to articulate, though he was shaking all over, with the excitement, that he would hardly have recognized his own voice. “I c’n feel the old ground shake! Listen, would you, to that smash! Must be volcanoes around here.”
“Keep still, and listen,” said Thad, in that tone of authority which both the talkers recognized as belonging to the scoutmaster, rather than their Chum Thad.
So they held their tongues, and strained their ears to listen.
There was no trouble in hearing, for the racket still kept up. There were heavy thuds, crashes, and a breaking of bushes. No wonder the scouts were mystified. No wonder one thought it a land-slide, while another believed some supposed extinct volcano had burst into action again, and that the rain of stones that followed, produced these weird sounds.
All at once the racket stopped, just as suddenly as though a command had been given to “cease firing.”
“Well, I declare, if that ain’t funny, now,” remarked Step Hen, but because of the order for silence which Thad had issued, he dared not breathe a word above a whisper.
“Hark!” said Allan.
Surely that sounded like a hoarse laugh. The boys crouched there, and strained their ears to hear more. Once or twice they thought they caught vague sounds. It was as if some one might be moving along the rocky elevation that formed one side of the near-by little basin in which they had made their small fire, and finished their once interrupted supper. But the sounds were moving further away, as though the unknown parties might be retreating.
Then silence, deep and profound, brooded over the immediate vicinity of the spot where the four startled scouts sat.