"Yes, I came over to tell your mother that your father couldn't get back till the afternoon boat," Mr. Harley explained. "Your mother wanted to know if I'd come and fetch you."
"Does she want us?" asked Meg quickly. "Oh! What was that?"
"Thunder," answered Mr. Harley, shortly. "Your mother sent you two umbrellas, but I don't think we'd better start now; the storm is 'most ready to break. Guess you were having such a good time you never heard the rumbling."
It was true. The children had never glanced up, or they would have seen the great white clouds that, mounting higher and higher, gradually darkened and then shut out the sun. They would have heard the angry mutterings of thunder and seen the sharp streaks of lightning, but the game of hunting for treasure had completely absorbed them.
"It will rain on us," remarked Meg nervously. "There isn't any roof, you know."
Then she blushed. She wondered if Mr. Harley thought they were selfish to amuse themselves in his tumble-down home, and whether it was polite of her to mention that the roof was gone.
"We'll have to make a roof," said Mr. Harley capably. "Let's see; if we take that door and put it across these two barrels, that will keep the rain off. Here's a piece of oilcloth we can use for a curtain to shut the lightning out. Now we're as comfy as we would be in a regular house."
While he spoke, he had lifted what had once been the front door of his house, placed it across two barrels and draped across the open side a large square of oilcloth that was cracked and creased in many places but still waterproof. The barrels were against the one wall of the house left standing, so that, when all was fixed, the small shelter was fairly comfortable.
Bobby, feeling in his pocket for a nail to pin the oilcloth more securely, touched the queer object his shovel had unearthed that morning.
"Look what I found," he said eagerly, holding out the little pointed specimen.