So it was. The storm had been creeping from its cradle. Now it swept down with an awful whirl and commingling of elements.
The boys, peering out from their rocky nest, saw a magnificent panorama beneath them. The regiments of the air were at war. Lightning chains encircled the heavens, lighting up the forests below. Winds charged down the mountain-side, sweeping stones and bushes before them. Hail-bullets rattled in volleys. Thunder-artillery boomed until the very rocks seemed to shake.
“It’s fine!” exclaimed Cyrus. “It’s super-fine!”
Then a curtain of thick rain partly hid the warfare, the lightning still rioting through it like a beacon of battle.
“The stones up above will have to be pretty firmly fixed to keep their places,” said Herb. “Boys, I hope there ain’t a-going to be slides on the mountain after this.”
“Slides?” echoed Dol questioningly.
“Landslides, kid. Say! if you want to be scared until your bones feel limp, you’ve got to hear a great big block of granite come ploughing down from the top ’o the mountain, bringing earth and bushes along with it, and smashing even the rocks to splinters as it pounds along.”
“I guess that’s a sensation we’d rather be spared,” said Cyrus gravely.
And under the quieting spell of the airy warfare there was silence for a while.
“Do you think it’s lightening up, Herb?” asked Neal, after the storm had raged for three-quarters of an hour.