d boy, bending his hat-brim to the onslaught, lost his
footing in the new slipperiness of the smooth, sloping rocks, down which
a solid sheet of water now raced, dimpling silver to the pelt of each
additional drop.

Before he could collect his scattered wits, another thunder peal came
cannonading at the mountain mass, and almost behind him a solitary old
fir tree shook the ground with its fall. Another fir was slivered into
huge splinters that flew--fortunately for Pedro--just too far away to hit
him. Then loosened rocks and bowlders began bounding and re-bounding down
the cliffs till their thunder seemed as loud as that from the heavens.

The lightning struck now here, now there, among the peaks, attracted by
veins of mineral.

Uneasy on account of the flying stones and falling tree trunks, Pedro was
about to take shelter by crawling under a shelving rock when the rock
itself was dislodged by a flash of lightning, and went pommeling to the
slide-rock on the slope below.

Seemingly all in the same breath, the rock-slide started, with a roar as
of fifty express trains, as it seemed to Pedro's long-suffering ears. An
electric storm always does start snow and rock slides.

As if that had been the grand climax, the storm ceased almost as suddenly
as it had begun. By his watch it had not been an hour, but from the
amount of damage done to both the geography and Pedro's feelings, it
might have been a year, or a century.

"But here we are, safe still," he told himself in surprise. "After this
experience, I don't believe there is anything worse anywhere to look
forward to. So what's the use of worrying about anything any more?
Ever!"--The experience had been worth while. Just how he was to make his
way back to camp was another question.

[Illustration: Loosened rocks and bowlders began bounding down the
cliffs.]

With the mountainside a choice between slippery, dripping rock slopes and
sliding mud, fallen tree trunks and soggy forest floor, it was no mean
test he had to meet. But as the irrepressible California sun once more
burst forth in golden glory, the clean-washed air was all balsamic
fragrance, every leaf and fir needle held at its tip a drop of opal, and
the birds,--emerging from the holes in which they had safely hidden,
those who survived,--burst into happy gratitude.

As luck would have it, an hour before the storm broke, the two boys had
sighted the smoke of a camp-fire hidden away down in the bottom of a