“We’re safe from falling trees, anyway,” observed Charlie, as he set his useless lamp to one side and jammed his hands into his pockets.
“Not the dryest place in the world!” chuckled Ted.
The rain slanted right into their faces, causing them to avert them, and the drippings from the top of the rock spattered over them. A thin trickle oozed down the sleek sides of the big stone and made their backs more wet than ever. Their plight was not a happy or a comfortable one.
“What I wouldn’t do with a good old fire right now!” sighed Drummer, shivering slightly.
“Here, hold your hands over the top of the lantern,” directed Ted, and Drummer followed his instructions and found the warmth welcome.
“I wonder how the fellows in camp are making it?” Ted worried, as the lightning flashes grew less frequent. “Of course they have the tents, but I wonder if they knew enough to loosen up on the tent ropes so as to take the strain off of the pegs? I won’t be surprised if we get back and find that half of the pegs have been pulled out of the ground!”
“How does that work, Ted?” Bob asked, with interest.
“Why, when a storm is coming up a camper must loosen up on his tent ropes, because when the canvas gets wet it pulls pretty strongly on the ropes, and if they haven’t been attended to they pull right out of the ground. If that business hasn’t been done I’ll have only myself to blame, for I neglected to tell you all about it. Never gave it a thought, though I should have at the time we dug the trenches around the tents.”
“It is a mighty good thing that we did dig the trenches,” put in Buck, all crouched in a heap. “Those fellows would be good and wet by this time if we hadn’t.”
“I don’t doubt but what they are right now,” said Ted, seriously. “With a fall of rain like this those trenches couldn’t possibly carry off all of the water. I think that we’ll all have to do some drying out when we get the fires started again and get back to normal!”