aid; "we can't get much wetter than we are already. We
might as well finish the night's work. I guess Mr. Berry'll take care of
the searchlight."

Mr. Berry had no intention of leaving the scene of his ruined
possessions to the mercy of vandals. Moreover, it seemed likely that
with the abatement of the storm the neighboring village would turn out
to view the devastation.

Once the end of the trail was located, the ascent of the mountain was
not difficult, and the four explorers made their way up the
comparatively easy slope, hindered only by trees which had fallen across
the path. The old mountain which frowned so forbiddingly down upon the
camp across the lake was very docile when taken from behind. It was just
a big bully.

As Tom and the three scouts approached the summit, the devastation
caused by the storm became more and more appalling. Great trees had been
torn up as if they had been no more than house plants. These had fallen,
some to the ground and some against other trees, their spreading roots
dislodging big rocks which had gone crashing down against other trees.
Some of these rocks remained poised where the least agitation would
release them.

Nature cannot be disturbed like this without suffering convulsions
afterwards, and the continual low noises of dripping roots and of trees
and branches sinking and settling and falling from temporary supports,
gave a kind of voice of suffering and anguish to the wilderness.

These strange sounds were on every hand and they made the wrecked and
drenched woods to seem haunted. Now and again a sound almost human would
startle the cautious wayfarers as they picked their way amid the sodden
chaos. In places it seemed as if the merest footfall would dislodge some
threatening bowlder which would blot their lives out in a second. And
the ragged, gaping chasms left by roots made the soggy ground uncertain
support for yards about.

Toward the summit the path was quite obliterated under the jumble of the
wreckage, and the party clambered over and threaded their way amid this
debris until the tiny but cheering lights of Temple Camp were visible
far down across the lake. There the two arriving troops were about
finishing their hot stew! Far down and nearer than the camp was a moving
speck of light; some one was on the lake. The boys did not venture too
near that precipitous descent.

Suddenly Roy, who had been walking along a fallen tree trunk, called,
"Look here! Here's a