“It will be lots nearer if we strike up hill here. It’ll be hard going until we reach the top, but easy going down the other side. We ought to strike the road about half-way between the pond and the village. Perhaps we’ll find a place where we can get out of the wet. Anyhow, there’s no use staying here. I’m getting wetter and wetter every minute, and there’s a regular cascade running down my back. Here, let’s empty out this fool paper and stuff the bags in our pockets.”
“All right,” answered Nelson; and the paper chase came to an ignominious finish then and there.
It was tough work climbing that slope in the face of a blinding torrent, but they struggled upward, slipping and stumbling and panting. The lightning had become almost continuous, and the thunder did its part with might and main. What with the darkness of the sky and the gloom of the forest, there was very little light to go by; and as the rain forced them to close their eyes half the time, they were continually butting into trees, tangling themselves up in the undergrowth or stumbling over dead branches.
“This is a deuce of a note!” grumbled Dan as he picked himself up for the fifth or sixth time, and tried to dry his wet hands on his wetter trousers. “I’d give a dollar for an umbrella!”
“Or a tent,” sputtered Nelson. “I’m mighty nigh drowned and— Hello! Look yonder!”
Dan looked, and the next instant they were floundering toward shelter. What Nelson had seen was an old log house. It wasn’t in the best of repair, for the roof had fallen in at one end and the door had long since disappeared. But it was a case of any port in a storm, and when, breathless and dripping, they reached it, they found that it afforded ample protection. It was about twelve feet long by eight feet wide, with a door at one end, and a tiny opening at the other that had probably served in its day as a window. It was unfloored, but, save near the doorway and at the farther end where the roof had fallen inward, it was quite dry. It was as dark as pitch in there save when a flash of lightning momentarily illumined it.
“Gee,” sighed Dan, “this is great!”
“Swell!” murmured Nelson, with a shiver. “But I wish we had a fire.”
“Got any matches?”