“We’ve managed to keep our jackets tolerably dry after all,” announced Josh, at a time when there happened to be a little slackening of the gale; “and that’s what everybody couldn’t have done under the same conditions.”
“Well, I should say not,” another scout declared; “I know lots of fellows who think themselves extra smart around town, and yet put them up here and they’d either have been knocked out hiding under a tree that was struck, or else soaked through to the skin.”
“It takes scouts to figure things out when the supreme test comes,” said Josh.
“Yes, some scouts,” added Felix, drily; as much as to tell Josh not to plume himself too highly, because this was not his bright thought.
A more terrific peal of thunder than any they had yet heard except that one outburst, stopped their talking for a brief time.
“I really believe the old storm is coming back to try it all over again!” cried Billy Button, in dismay.
“They often seem to do that,” remarked another boy. “That has puzzled me more’n I can tell. What’s the explanation, Mr. Witherspoon?”
“Well, as near as I can say,” replied the scout master, “it’s something like this. Most storms have a regular rotary movement as well as their forward drift. On that account a hurricane at sea has a core or center, where there is almost a dead clam.”
“Yes, I’ve read about that,” interrupted Josh. “Sea captains always mention it when they’ve found themselves in the worst of a big blow. It slackens up, and then comes on again worse than ever.”
“But always from exactly the opposite quarter,” the scout master continued.