for Tom's safety, but the ordinary chances of such a disturbance
of the elements as this never bothered Ruth Fielding at all.

As the rolling of thunder died away in the distance again, the splashing
sound of the rain seemed to grow lighter, too; or Ruth's hearing became
attuned to the sounds about her.

There it was again! A human cry! Or was it? It came from up the hillside
to the north of the road on which the automobiles were stalled.

Was there somebody up there in the wet woods--some human creature lost in
the storm?

For a third time Ruth heard the wailing, long-drawn cry. Henri had his
hands full soothing Jennie. Helen and Aunt Kate were clinging together in
the depths of the tonneau. Possibly their eyes were covered against the
glare of the lightning.

Ruth slipped out under the curtain on the leeward side. The rain swept
down the hillside in solid platoons that marched one after another from
northwest to southeast. Dashing against the southern hillside, these
marching columns dissolved in torrents that Ruth could hear roaring down
from the tree-tops and rushing in miniature floods through the forest.

The road was all awash. The cars stood almost hub-deep in a yellow,
foaming flood. The roadside ditches were not deep here, and the sudden
freshet was badly guttering the highway.

Sheltered at first by the top of the big car, Ruth strained her ears again
to catch that cry which had come down the wind from the thickly wooded
hillside.

There it was! A high, piercing scream, as though the one who uttered it
was in great fear or agony. Nor did the cry seem to be far away.

Ruth went around to the other side of the automobile. The rain was letting
up--or seemed to be. She crossed to the higher ground and pushed through
the fringe of bushes that bordered the road.

Already her feet and ankles were saturated, for she had waded through
water more than a foot in depth. Here on the steep hillside the flowing
water followed the beds of small rivulets which carried it away on either
side of her.

The thick branches of the trees made an almost impervious umbrella above
her head. She could see up the hill through the drifting mist for a long
distance. The aisles between the rows of trees seemed filled with a sort
of pallid light.

Across the line of her vision and through one of these aisles passed a
figure--whether that of an animal or the stooping body of a human being
Ruth Fielding could not at first be sure