“If we’re going to find him before that storm breaks, it’s got to be done fast now,” Wee Willie told them, when a still more resonant grumble followed what was plainly a distant flash of lightning.
“All we can do,” advised the guide with the lighted lantern, “is to keep moving until we’re up against it, when of course we’ll have to try to find some shelter ourselves.”
Wee Willie continued to let out a whoop from time to time. It amused him, at least, and could do no harm, while there was always a slender chance that Perk might hear and reply.
“Wow! things are getting pretty warm!” he announced shortly afterwards, when a really deafening crash followed quickly on the heels of a blinding electric display.
“I felt the first drop of rain on my face when I looked up at that flash,” said Amos, trying to show the utmost coolness.
“Yes, it’s going to break right away,” said Elmer.
“Perk, I wonder where you are?” Wee Willie remarked on a hazard, remembering what a dislike the lost chum invariably displayed toward all kinds of strife among the elements.
“Listen! what’s that?” asked Amos. “Sounds for all the world like a regular young Niagara going over the falls.”
“It means the rain is rushing down on us, and that we’re going to be soaked through and through in a jiffy,” Elmer told him.
Five minutes afterwards and they found themselves in the midst of as lively a summer gale as any of them had ever known, with the artillery in the heavens keeping up an almost constant booming, occupied by dazzling flashes of lightning; while to the right and to the left they could hear terrific crashing sounds as trees were laid prostrate before the fury of the hurricane wind!