“I am safe enough!” panted Pepper, as he pulled himself up with vigor. “Hurrah, I’m up!” he added, a moment later. “Where’s the rock?”
“There it is!” shouted Andy, coming to the top and racing off. Jack was beside him, and away the three started for the flat rock less than twenty yards away. They came up abreast, and all three flung themselves on the rock simultaneously.
“Here!” gasped Andy.
“Here!” panted Pepper.
“A tie!” said Jack, when he could speak. “Creation, but wasn’t that last climb a corker!”
“So it was,” answered Pepper.
“Talk about rain,” came from Andy. “Say, we’ve got to get under shelter or we’ll be soaked.”
“There is something of a cliff,” said Jack, pointing with his hand. “That ought to afford some protection. Phew!”
The last exclamation followed a vivid flash of lightning and a crack of thunder that made all the cadets jump. They leaped in the direction of the cliff and crouched under it. Then came another flash and a crack, and the rain came down in a deluge.
“Here is an opening, under the cliff,” said Pepper, looking around among the brushwood growing at the base of the rocks. “Let us get in that. It will be some protection against the lightning as well as the rain.”