ggested
Felix, with a shrug of his shoulders; "not one of us would have ever
known what hit him."

"I've seen all I want to, Tom; let us go back," said Horace, who looked
rather white by now. "Besides, I think it's going to pour down again
shortly."

"That's right," added another scout; "you can hear it coming over
there. Everybody scoot for the home base."

They lost no time in retracing their steps, and just managed to reach
the friendly shelter of the ledges when the rain did come down, if
anything harder than ever.

"There'll be a big boom in the river after this!" remarked Felix, when
the rain had been falling in a deluge for ten minutes.

"I think it must be next door to what they call a cloud burst; wouldn't
you say so, Mr. Witherspoon?" asked another boy.

"It seems like it," he was told by the scout master. "Meantime we ought
to be very thankful we're so well provided for. No danger of being
floated away this far up on the mountain. But the rain is going to stop
presently."

"Getting softer already!" announced the watchful Josh.

"I didn't have any chance to ask you about the big oak?" Mr.
Witherspoon continued.

"There isn't any," remarked Felix; "only a wreck that would make you
hold your breath and rub your eyes."

"Then it was struck by that terrible bolt, was it?" asked the scout
master.

"Smashed, into flinders," replied Josh. "You never in all your life saw
such a wreck, sir."

"We'll all take a glance at it before we leave this place," the leader
of the hiking troop told them. "But from the way things look there's a
good chance we may think it best to put in the night right here, where
we can be sure of a dry place for sleeping."

"That strikes me as a good idea, sir," said Tom, promptly, for he had
been considering proposing that very plan himself, though of course he
did not see fit to say so now.

"All I hope is that the river doesn't sweep away a part of Lenox," one
of the boys was heard to say. "You remember that years ago, before any
of us can remember, they had a bad flood, and some lives were lost."

"Oh yes, but that was in the spring," explained Josh, "when the heavy
snows melted, and what with ten days of rain the ground couldn't take
up any more water. It's a whole lot different in June. Besides, we've
been having it pretty hot and dry lately, remember, and the earth can
drink up a lot of water."

"Still, you never can tell what a flood will do," George was heard to
sa