They went over to the door, which had long since blown shut, and Herb turned the knob. The door flung inward with such violence that it nearly knocked him from his feet. It took the combined force of the three boys to push it to again.
“A regular hurricane,” gasped Joe. “Takes your breath away. Say, fellows, I wish Doughnuts were back.”
And when another twenty minutes had passed and still no sign of Jimmy, the boys put on their coats, pulled their caps down over their eyes and started out to search for him. They knew the path he would take and they started down it, the wind behind them fairly lifting them along.
“Coming back, we’ll have to face this wind,” shouted Herb.
A ripping, rending noise! A sound as though the earth itself were being torn asunder! With a terrific crash a giant monarch of the forest fell across their path!
CHAPTER XVIII
PINNED DOWN
So directly in their path was the felled giant of the forest that the boys stumbled among its outstretched branches before they could stop their onward rush.
Then they pulled their caps still closer over their eyes, circled around the tree and found the path again. They knew just how close they had been to death, and yet their thoughts at that moment were not of themselves. They were thinking of Jimmy, wondering if, perhaps, some such accident as had happened to them had overtaken their chum. Was that what had delayed him? They shuddered and ran faster.
The wind, fierce as it had been before, seemed momentarily to increase in violence. Trees moaned beneath the force of it, sweeping their tortured branches earthward. Again and again came that tearing, rending sound that meant the downfall of another forest giant.
Urged on now by a horrible fear for Jimmy’s safety, the boys climbed over jagged stumps, fought their way through clinging branches, keeping the while a sharp lookout to right and left of them. Several times they stopped and shouted, but the wind viciously whipped the sound from their lips and they had the nightmare feeling that they were making no noise at all.