The boys wielded their sticks well, but no trophies resulted. Evidently the mound had been well cleaned out, and nothing missed. They proceeded to the next, and the next. Time sped more rapidly than they were aware of. Suddenly Ned straightened up, in the third mound, and exclaimed:
“Say, Hal, do you know it’s getting dark?”
They hastily scrambled out of the hole. Not only was the sun low, but it was cloaked by a mass of dense, black cloud unfolding swiftly toward the zenith. An ominous growl of thunder rolled up the sky. Birds were twittering uneasily, and the slight breeze had died entirely away.
“Great Cæsar!” cried Hal. “I bet Sam and Joe have gone by, and we haven’t seen them!”
“No, they wouldn’t do that. They’d look for us, and yell!” assured Ned, stanchly. “But we’re going to have a big thunder-storm, that’s sure.”
“I wish they’d come,” murmured Hal, plaintively.
“Maybe they’ll wait until after the storm,” responded Ned. “Anyway, we’ve got to find some place where we can keep kind of dry, and watch the river, too.”
“Don’t you remember that cave we saw when we were climbing up?” asked Hal, struck with an idea. “What’s the matter with that?”
Nothing was the matter with it. It was a cavity worn out under a jutting slab of limestone—much as though the sloping ground had fallen away at this point. There was plenty of room to sit upright, for some distance back in it.
A short time the boys sat on their roof, so to speak, and hung their legs over the edge of the slab, while they noted the approach of the storm. Swiftly the cloud marched onward, foot by foot blotting out the blue. Vivid lightning played through the billows of heavy vapor, and the thunder pealed and mumbled.