"All right, Will, what is it?" replied the other, who kept glancing back at very brief intervals to make sure his chum still ran at his heels, for he feared that should they ever be separated in that gathering gloom it would be impossible for them to come together again.
"Do you think we can make it?" demanded the other, with a touch of despair in his voice, for the situation looked frightfully appalling to Will.
"Sure we will!" he was immediately assured in Frank's most cheery fashion. "Right now I can see the first of the rocks. Given two more minutes at the most and we'll be able to crawl under a shelf, and lie there as snug as two bugs in a rug."
Frank did not feel any too sanguine himself, but he would not let Will know of any fears he possessed regarding the possibility of their not finding the shelter among the rocks after all.
A terrific peal of thunder drowned their conversation for a brief interval, but they were pushing resolutely forward all the while. Frank was straining those keen eyes of his to some purpose. He knew they were at the border of the rough, rocky section now. If only they could run upon the friendly outcropping shelf which he remembered to have seen at the time they passed before, they would find shelter.
All would have been easy enough had they been given ordinary daylight so as to look around them. The gathering gloom made it very difficult to see twenty feet away with any degree of certainty. Frank was being guided partly by instinct, and the knowledge that he had taken his right bearings to start with.
"Frank, I felt the first drop of rain!" shrilled Will, filled with a new fear, for he was afraid that his pet camera would be ruined should they be soaked to the skin, which was a calamity terrible enough to break his heart.
Frank did not need to be told of the falling rain, for he, too, had discovered the ominous fact even before his chum announced it. There was nothing to be done but set their teeth grimly and bear it. The rocks were now all around them. If only they could discover that friendly ledge!
"Yes, it's beginning to come down now, because I can hear it in the treetops over that way, can't you, Frank?"
"What you hear is mostly the wind, Will; but that sounds bad enough, I own up. There, I remember that broken tree making a bow above the path we followed. And the ledges were close by it, I'm dead certain. Come this way, Will; chances are we'll run on them right off."