by such a terrific crash of thunder that their ears
rang.

"Gee!" cried Bob, "that was a close call! I'll bet that bolt came
within a rod of striking us."

"A miss is as good as a mile," shouted John cheerfully. He and the
others found that they would have to yell in order to be heard, so
great was the noise from engine and storm.

_Zip!_ went a zigzagging livid streak across their range of vision. It
seemed to be running straight for them, and instinctively they
dodged--all but Tom and John. These old veterans continued to gaze
coolly straight ahead as though nothing had happened. _Crash-h!_ went
a clap of thunder. It seemed as if the whole heavens were being turned
topsy-turvy. Even the airplane, usually so steady, heaved and rode
like a rocking-horse.

The two younger members of the party were not to be blamed for feeling
pretty well frightened by this time. It was one thing to be cutting
through the fleecy white clouds of a calm day, and quite another to go
stabbing through murky black ones which were rolling angrily, ejecting
both wind and rain, and spitting out vicious roars and jagged streaks
of pale-blue flame. One moment they would be in gloom; the next
instant a cloud would be rent asunder with a ripping, tearing sound,
and the whole turbid, boiling sky-universe would be bathed in the
ghostly light. What a weird, fantastic, chaotic world they were in!

But it was only for a few minutes that they were in the worst danger.
Soon, to their infinite relief, they had reached their "ceiling." They
were now 15,000 feet up--almost three miles,--and below them lay the
vast sea of troubled cloudland, dark and forbidding, rolling
tumultuously like an ocean of curdled ink. It was a novel experience
to be running in the clear air over all of this infernality of sounds
and sights, while above them the blue, star-studded heavens looked down
upon them calmly and peaceably.

For almost an hour the furious storm continued in the lower regions.
Then it began slowly to subside. First the lightning stopped, then the
thunder. The banks of clouds took on a lighter hue, and began to drift
apart; a pinnacle here and a crag there were swept off by the winds,
until the masses of nimbus became flattened out into patches of
sun-flecked foam as beautiful as fresh-fallen snow.

The anemometer spun slower and slower as the gale decreased in
violence, and presently the airplane was gliding along with its normal
smoothnes