big tent, Wyn even dragging the canvas
of the cook tent inside to keep it from becoming saturated.

Fortunately the last peg had been secured. The flap was laced down
quickly. In the semi-darkness of the sudden twilight the girls and Mrs.
Havel stood together and listened to the rain drum upon the taut canvas.

How it sounded! Worse than the rain on a tin roof! Peering out through
the slit in the middle of the tent-flap they could see nothing but a
gray wall of water.

Suddenly there was a glaring blue flash, followed soon by the roar of
the thunder. Several of the girls cried out and crouched upon the
ground.

"Oh, dear me! this is awful!" groaned Grace again.

Mina Everett was sobbing with the pain in her thumb and her fear of the
lightning.

"Now, this will never do, girls," admonished Wyn Mallory. "Come! we can
set up the alcohol lamp and make tea. That will help some. There are
crackers and some ham, and a whole big bottle of olives. Why! we sha'n't
starve for supper, that's sure."

"I--I don't know as I want to eat," quavered Mina.

"Pshaw! We Go-Aheads must not be afraid of a little storm----"

Wyn's voice was drowned in the clap of thunder which accompanied an
awful flash of lightning. With both came a splintering crash, the tent
seemed to rock, and for a moment its interior was vividly illuminated by
the electric bolt. The lightning had struck near at hand.

CHAPTER VIII

AT WINDMILL FARM

Both Wyn and Mrs. Havel--the bravest of the seven gathered in the big
tent--were frightened by this awful shock. The other girls clung to
them, Mina and Grace sobbing aloud.

"I--I feel as though that bolt fairly seared my eyeballs," groaned Frank
Cameron. "Oh, dear! Here's another!"

But this flash was not so severe. The girls peered out of the slit in
the front of the tent and screamed again in alarm. The rain had passed
for the moment. There, not many rods away, stood an old, half-dead oak
with its top all ablaze.

"That is where the lightning struck," cried Wyn.

"It is fortunate our tent was no nearer to that side of the plateau,"
observed Mrs. Havel.

Then the rain commenced again, and the thudding on the canvas drowned
out their voices for a time.

Somehow Wyn managed to get supper. The thunder and lightning gradually
subsided; but for an hour the rain came in intermittent dashes and it
was nine o'clock before they could venture forth into the cool, damp
air.

They had eaten their simp