By the time all had been done the boys were dripping, and it took them some twenty minutes to get warm again, snuggled in their blankets.
"Oh! what a night!" wailed Will a dozen times.
"Please let up on that, or give us a change in tune. It's bad enough to have to stand the storm without listening to a phonograph," grunted Bluff.
The hours crept along. Now and then they dozed, but sound slumber did not come to a single one of the group. Uncle Toby was quite content to cower as close to Frank as possible, satisfied that the other was able to protect him. He seemed to exhibit the blind confidence of a dog in an emergency calling for energy; to him Frank was a type of manliness hard to match.
"Will the morning ever come?" groaned Will, as he shifted his cramped position for the tenth time at least.
"Well, I think we've got a lot to be thankful for," declared Frank, stoutly; "in the first place, no great damage is done, for I saw that our tent was caught in the branches of a tree close by, and we can rescue it in the morning. Then nothing was spoiled that I know of. And the storm is really over, though morning is some two hours off," striking a match and looking at his nickel watch.
"Can't we have a fire?" asked Will, who was shivering under his blanket.
"Just thinking so myself. It's getting sharp, now that the wind has shifted into the northwest. Suppose we make a try," answered Frank, readily.
It was just in anticipation of such an emergency that he had hidden some of the dry wood away where the rain could not reach it. Frank's previous experience in woodcraft had taught him many valuable things.
Securing some of this, he quickly had a little blaze. The others fed this in a cautious manner, so as not to smother it by too much fuel. As a result the fire was in a short time burning freely, and diffusing a genial warmth around that proved very acceptable to the chilled campers.