Buck looked away across the valley in which Black Riders’ Camp lay. “I don’t see any sign of lightning,” he said. “Probably it is miles away from here yet. We can do a little more hunting around and then go back.”
“I wonder if it is worth while?” asked Ted, looking up the slope. “I haven’t seen any sign of our friend with his light. Maybe he has gone home and to bed.”
“We’ll go a little further, anyway,” urged Buck. “Then we can fetch up in a wide circle and come in back of the camp. If anything is wrong down there we ought to arrive in time to be in on it.”
“Wait until I see what time it is,” Ted answered, and he glanced at his watch. “Just ten-thirty. We must get back pretty soon. All right, let’s go on.”
He wondered if he had been wise in giving in to Buck, for a more penetrating and rolling peal of thunder reached their ears, bringing with it a brooding sense of uneasiness that was disconcerting. The thunder rolled back and forth between the mountains, which seemed to toss it back and forth after a profound rolling that had a grinding sound attached to it. The air itself had been comparatively still but now a faint and disturbing little wind slipped in and out between the leaves and branches of the trees. Out of the corner of his eye Drummer caught a glimpse of a lightning flash.
“I saw that flash of lightning just then,” he proclaimed, confirming an impression that Ted had in his own mind. Drummer was not comfortable and longed to return to camp.
They came to a halt, uncertain, with the majority desiring to return to camp. Buck alone wanted to chance the thunder storm which there was now no doubt in the world was coming. But he knew that such a course was foolish and he gave in.
“All right,” he sighed. “I do hate to give up the chase, though.”
“I guess we all do,” agreed Ted. “But we’ll have to get right back. It will take us a good half hour as it is, even if we do have to go down instead of up, and we will be lucky if we reach the camp in time.”
“Oh, you’re right there,” his chum agreed, glancing for the last time up the mountain in a searching way. “We simply must get back. I was just—Ah!”