“They ought to be longer,” Whalen said.
“What do you say we fell that tree we started on and lay the trunk crossways underneath here?” Tom asked.
“Ought to do,” said Ned. “It’s going to pour again, though, in about ten minutes.”
“Let it come,” said Tom cheerily; “I’ll scoot for shelter when it does.”
Taking an axe that lay in one of the enclosed seats, Tom started for a tree a couple of hundred feet distant which had already been partially chopped for felling. Whalen sat in the pavilion watching him. Tom soon became so engrossed in his vigorous labor that he was not aware of the suddenly increasing volume of rain and the distant rumbling which heralded another spasm of the fickle weather.
“Would you like an umbrella?” Whalen called in allusion to Fairgreaves.
“Not yet,” laughed Tom.
“Better come in.”
“I can’t stop now,” Tom called, cheerily. “Let her come.”
The low, distant rumbling continued, a dazzling streak of lightning lit the sky, the woods were bright for a moment, and as the sudden light subsided through a series of lesser flashes, the dark leaves on all the trees were standing upright and fluttering madly in the heightening gale.