But the rain came down in torrents, and it soon began to run in under and over them.
“We can’t stay here,” said Charlie; “let’s go to the house.”
“I won’t,” replied John; “Ben will laugh at us, and Sally will say, ‘Didn’t I tell you so.’”
“Charlie, have you got the flint, steel, and matches?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know of any hollow tree?”
“Yes; a great big one, all dead.”
“Could you find it in the dark?”
“Yes; I can go right to it.”
They found the tree, dark as it was, for Charlie knew it stood in the corner of the log fence, and followed the fence till he came to it. It was an enormous pine, completely dead, and with a hollow in it large enough to hold the whole of them. It stood among a growth of old hemlocks, whose foliage was so dense,—the lower limbs drooping almost to the earth,—that they shed the rain, and the ground under them was but slightly wet.