The manager and Gerard personally escorted the rah-rah boys off the grounds of the Ashbury Terraces, and they were seen no more thereabouts. Who they were was not learned, but Gerard's word was accepted that the rah-rah boys had no connection with Saunders College.
Dick & Co. had two more pleasant meetings with their high school friends before an about-face was made, and the return hike to Gridley started.
Their liveliest adventures were yet ahead of them.
CHAPTER XV
MAKING PORT IN A STORM
"Did you ever see a blacker, more peculiar looking cloud coming than that one?" demanded Tom Reade, as the high school boys emerged from the gloom of a long, narrow forest road into comparatively open country.
"Is it a coming storm, or an optical delusion?" pondered Dick, halting and staring hard.
"It looks like pictures I've seen of water spouts," Greg declared.
"That's what it is," Dick replied quietly. "Though I've never seen one before, it's hard to be fooled, for that chap looks just like his published photographs. And look at that queer, brownish, half-yellowish sky back of it. It certainly looks forbidding."
"And we're going to have a stormy afternoon of it!" muttered Dave.