"Um—ah, I don't just know," rejoined Jess, "it's rather too grand if anything. I——" Bang!
There was a sharp report, like that of a large cannon. The air was filled with an eye-blistering blaze of blue fire. Stunned for an instant, and half blinded, not one of the young folks in the touring car uttered a word.
The storm, too, appeared to be "holding its breath" after that terrific bombardment.
"That struck close by," declared Roy, the first to recover his speech.
"Oh! oh!" moaned Miss Prescott, "then the next will hit us!"
"Don't be a goose, Aunt Sally," comforted Peggy; "don't you know that lightning never strikes twice in the same place?"
Miss Prescott made no answer. In fact she had no opportunity to do so.
From close at hand shouts were coming. Loud, frightened shouts.
"Fire! fire!"
"Gracious! something's on fire at that farmhouse!" cried Peggy.