He brought the poncho closer about his neck, and retied it.
“If I yell, you answer. I may get lost in this drizzle.”
Then he stepped out from under the tossing, dripping branches, and was lost to sight almost instantly. The others waited silently, their hands in their pockets for warmth. After awhile Bob shouted, and presently rejoined them.
“I’ve found an old shed or something over here. Come on.”
He led the way at a run, and they raced after him, gasping for breath as the solid curtains of rain dashed into their faces. Then they were under the lee of a building, Bob was wrenching open a door which hung from one leather hinge, and in a moment they were inside, blinking the water from their eyes. At first it was too dark in there to see much, but presently as they became accustomed to it they began to make out objects in the gray gloom.
The hut, for it was scarcely more, was about twenty feet long and twelve feet wide. There was one door, through which they had entered, and two windows, one still containing the remnants of a sash, and the other having been roughly boarded up. Along the back of the hut remnants of a double tier of wooden bunks remained. In the center of the floor, resting on four bricks, was a rusty stove. At one time there had been a pipe leading through the roof, as the round hole there indicated. But now the pipe was gone, and the hole leaked water like a spout. The place was littered with rubbish, old newspapers, tin cans, and bottles, a broken pick, and a worn-out pair of overalls. Bob lighted a match, and they explored, kicking their way through the débris.
“Not what you’d call a first-class hotel,” observed Dan.
“No,” said Tom. “And it’s evidently very much on the European plan.”
“Unless you can eat tin cans, Tommy,” answered Bob. “But it’s dry, anyhow, and that’s something. And seems to me we might manage a fire in that stove with some of this truck.”
“We’ll be smoked out.”