Flashes with the accompanying cracks of thunder followed closely one upon the other, so that no one could be heard to speak, even though he yelled at the top of his lungs. The wind rose to a regular gale and the wagon rocked like a cockleshell on a choppy sea. The Indian sat unconcerned and kept driving as if in the most heavenly day, but the four horses reared their heads, snorting with fear and lunging at the bits in nervousness.
The storm passed away just as unexpectedly as it came, but it left the road, which was at best rough and full of holes, filled with water. The wagon wheels splashed through these wells, soaking everything within a radius of ten feet, and constantly shaking the scouts up thoroughly.
“I feel like a pillow, beaten up by a good housekeeper so that the feathers will fluff up,” said Julie.
“I’d rather feel like a pillow than to have my tongue chopped to bits,” cried Ruth, complainingly. “If I have any tongue left after this ride, I shall pickle it for safekeeping.”
“Can’t Featherweight sit still?” laughed Joan.
Mrs. Vernon placed an arm about Ruth’s shoulder to hold her steadier, just as an unusually deep hole shook up everybody and all the baggage in the wagon.
“There now! That’s the last bite left in my tongue! Three times I thought it was bitten through, but this last jolt twisted the roots so that I will have to have an artificial one hinged on at the first hospital we find,” wailed Ruth, showing the damaged organ that all might pity her.
Instead of giving sympathy, every one laughed, and Julie added, “At least your tongue is still in use, but my spine caved in at that last ravine we passed through, and now I have no backbone.”
Just as the scouts began laughing merrily at the two girls the front wagon wheel on the right side dropped into a hole, while the horses strained at the traces. The awful shock and jar given the passengers threw them against the canvas sides, and then together again in a heap.
The babel of shouting, screaming, laughing voices that instantly sounded from the helpless pile of humanity frightened the nervous horses. The leaders plunged madly, but the wheel stuck fast in the hole. Tally held a stiff rein, but the leaders contaminated the two rear horses, and all four plunged, reared, snorted, and pulled different ways at once. The inevitable was sure to happen!