CHAPTER VIII
AT WINDMILL FARM
Both Wyn and Mrs. Havel–the bravest of the seven gathered in the big tent–were frightened by this awful shock. The other girls clung to them, Mina and Grace sobbing aloud.
“I–I feel as though that bolt fairly seared my eyeballs,” groaned Frank Cameron. “Oh, dear! Here’s another!”
But this flash was not so severe. The girls peered out of the slit in the front of the tent and screamed again in alarm. The rain had passed for the moment. There, not many rods away, stood an old, half-dead oak with its top all ablaze.
“That is where the lightning struck,” cried Wyn.
“It is fortunate our tent was no nearer to that side of the plateau,” observed Mrs. Havel.
Then the rain commenced again, and the thudding on the canvas drowned out their voices for a time.
Somehow Wyn managed to get supper. The thunder and lightning gradually subsided; but for an hour the rain came in intermittent dashes and it was nine o’clock before they could venture forth into the cool, damp air.
They had eaten their simple meal and set up the sleeping cots (which were likewise of canvas) before that. There was a flooring of matched planks to be laid, too; but the rain had wet them and the girls would have to wait for to-morrow’s sun to dry them.
“Oh! I don’t believe living under canvas is going to be half so nice as we thought,” complained Mina. “I never did think about its storming.”