“I don’t want to stay here,” said Cora. “Besides, something might happen to the boys. But how are you going to explore the cave in the dark? And it is as dark as a bottle of ink in there. Have any of you your flashlights?”
“We can make a torch of wood,” said Jack, when it developed that none of them had one of the pocket electric lights.
But just as Jack and the others were about to enter the cave the mutterings of thunder which had been increasing, culminated in such a clap that the girls, involuntarily placed their hands over their ears.
“Come on! Run for the bungalow!” cried Cora. “Else we’ll be caught in a terrible storm! It’s starting to rain now.”
Some hot drops hissed down, the prelude to an almost tropical fury of the elements it seemed.
“We can go into the cave,” suggested Paul.
“No!” cried his sister. “You shan’t go in there with this storm coming up. The cave will keep. Come on, let’s run!”
She darted off down the side of the mountain, the other girls following. The boys hesitated a moment, and then, not wishing to desert the girls, even though the latter ran first, they followed.
“We can come back to the cave to-morrow,” said Walter. “It won’t run away. And to explore it well we ought to have the electric lights. Come on.”
Paul and Jack followed him, and they all reached the girls’ bungalow just as the deluge of rain came down.