Elmer made his way back to camp, and arrived long before noon came, so that he had plenty of time to rest and think over the situation. He wondered whether he had succeeded in making any progress by his morning's expedition. He had met Jem, for one thing, and told him how much he was interested in Conrad's playing. Yes, Elmer concluded that the game he meant to play had been advanced more or less since the coming of another day.
The surveyors came trooping into camp along about noon, heated and tired. Rufus was apparently getting quite enough of that hard work, for the time being. Besides, he admitted that he had gone sufficiently far by then to make sure that the previous survey had been a failure, and that the job would have to be done over again in order to get the right lines.
Elmer was not sorry to hear him say that, and for several reasons. First of all, he wanted the tenderfeet to have further opportunities for picking up more or less useful knowledge of woodcraft, while in camp; and this could not be done if most of their time was spent in using those instruments, and worrying about backing new lines through the thickets and swamps that beset their course.
Then again Elmer did not like the looks of the weather. It was beginning to act suspiciously, as though a big storm might be brewing. The sun still shone up there in the sky, and both Rufus and Alec only thought it insufferably hot; but to one more experienced in such things, there was a deeper meaning in the heavy atmosphere, the strange silence on the part of birds and smaller animals, and the peculiar bank of clouds that lay low along the distant southwestern horizon.
Lil Artha sensed danger, too, for he spoke of it as they were eating lunch.
"Perhaps, Elmer," was the way he put it, "we'd be sensible if we took an extra reef or two in our sail this afternoon, while we have the chance. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, I always did believe; and scouts are taught that it's wise in time of peace to prepare for war."
"Hey! what's all this talk mean?" demanded the bewildered Rufus. "To hear you, Lil Artha, a fellow would think we had something terrible hanging over our heads. It must be you're prognosticating a storm, but I don't see what makes you think that, when the sun never shone brighter. Do the birds carry the secret, and have you fellows found a way to understand their lingo?"
"Well, in a way that's correct, too, Rufus," chuckled the lanky scout. "When you get on familiar terms with everything that lives in the woods, you can tell a heap. It does seem that insects, birds and animals are given instinct in place of reasoning powers. So the squirrel knows when it promises to be a severe winter, and he lays in an extra big store of nuts. And in the same way something warns these little creatures when a storm is coming, although human beings see no sign. Well, from the change that's taken place all around us we scouts can give a good guess that these same birds and insects are making ready for trouble; and it's bound to come from that quarter yonder, where you can see a bank of dark clouds hugging the horizon."
"But, Lil Artha," protested Alec, strenuously, "I noticed yon bank o' clouds mair nor two hours back, and I gie ye my word it hasn't moved a wee bit in a' that time."
"Oh! that's often the way a storm comes along," the other assured him, in a positive fashion, as though he had no doubt concerning the accuracy of his prediction. "Clouds will lie low for half a day, and then suddenly with a shift of the wind spread out over the whole heavens like magic. I promise you that before two hours have gone by you'll be stopping your ears with your fingers so's to shut out the crash of thunder."