"There is no knowing what one may find on a desert island," he remarked. "There is absolutely no knowing." Then he stopped a minute. "Is that all you can think of just now?" he asked Barty. "Just look about you."
Barty looked about him on the grass and under the trees, but he saw nothing which made him think of anything new.
"Look all about you," said the Good Wolf.
So he looked not only on the ground, but up into the tree tops and over them into the sky. It looked very blue and hot and beautiful, but far away he saw a rather small cloud of a very queer color—it was purplish-black and had ragged edges.
"It's a storm cloud," said the Good Wolf, looking serious, "and it's coming towards the island. Do you see the wind beginning to stir the tops of the trees?"
"Yes," said Barty, looking rather anxious himself. "On Robinson Crusoe's desert island there was a kind of storm they call a tropical storm—I don't know what 'tropical' means, but the storms were dreadful. Is there going to be one now?"
"There is," said the Good Wolf. "Tropical storms are storms in the hot countries, and they are not nice to be out in."
Barty gave a shout.
"Then it's a house we must find first," he said, "as quickly as ever we can. We can't stay in the forest because the wind roots up the trees and the lightning strikes them and they fall crashing and crashing. We must find a house or a place to hide in. Could we run back to the beach and dig a hole in the sand and creep into it?"
"The kind of storm that cloud is bringing here," answered the Good Wolf, "will lash the sea into waves like mountains, and they will roll in and cover the beach like a big tide."