The boys took but a short time to view the destruction, great as it was, when they faced about in the direction of the camp which was their destination from the first. It looked as though they were finally separated from the trail, for since it was so covered by fallen trees and limbs, not the slightest trace of it was seen. They were filled with dismay, and indeed would have been at their wits' end had not the cyclone confined its fury to exceedingly narrow limits. All its prodigious force was spent in and directly along the stream. Twenty yards away, the forest was undisturbed, so that the elemental scythe had made a clean swath as it sped along.
"Hurrah!" called out Terry, "here's the path; I follyed a straight line as I could from the water here, so I'm sure I couldn't coom out very far from the right place."
Fred hurried over the ruins to his side, and a glance at the ground showed that his friend was right: there was the trail at their feet.
"Now," said Terry, recovering his spirits, "if we had only knowed that that storm was coomin', we could have fastened our guns to our backs and swum across, without waitin' to build the raft, and saved all the time that we lost."
"But we would have been wetted all the same, had we done so."
"And gained that much time; do ye know," added Terry, in a half frightened voice, "what I obsarved?"
"I suppose you saw what I did,—the air full of water, trees, limbs, stones and lightning."
"While we were peepin' over the edge of the rock, ye moind that the wind cut our faces so we had to lower 'em to keep our heads flyin' off where we couldn't find 'em agin. It was yersilf that stuck yer nose in the ground, but I took a paap off beyanst the creek and I saan one of the Winnebagos."
"Can it be possible! what was he doin'?"
"Turnin' summersets at the rate of twinty to the second and about a dozen faat above the ground; I had only the one glimpse of him, but whin I obsarved him it looked to me as if his head and one leg wint off in different directions; I s'pose he's lookin' for the same."