wanted
Jacks-in-the-pulpit, and sought diligently for them, getting away from
all but Dorothy in her anxiety to find her home flower. She dearly
loved Jacks--they grew just against the Dale wall in dear old Dalton,
and she wanted to send one flower home to little Johnnie. It would be
crushed in a letter of course, but she would put some dainty little
ferns beside it and they would keep the lazy look. Then she could tell
Johnnie all about the mountain top--send him some bright red maple
leaves, and some yellow ones.

"Oh, Dorothy!" she exclaimed. "I see some almost-purple leaves," and
down the side of a ledge she slipped. "Come on! The footing is
perfectly safe."

Dorothy saw that the place was apparently safe, and she made her way
eagerly after Tavia. Dorothy, too, wanted to send specimens home from
Mount Gabriel, so she, too, must try to get the prettiest ones that
grew there.

The roll of thunder was now heard by the pair but it was not heeded.
Bit by bit they made their way along the newly-discovered slope; step
by step they went farther away from their companions.

Suddenly a flash of lightning shot down a tree! The next minute there
was a downpour of rain, like the dashing of a cloud burst.

"Oh!" screamed Dorothy. "What shall we do?"

[Illustration: "OH! WHAT SHALL WE DO?" CRIED DOROTHY--_Page 155.]

"Get under the cliff!" ordered Tavia. "Quick! Before the next flash!"

Grasping wildly at stumps and brush, as they made their way down the
now gloomy slope, the two frightened girls managed to get under some
protection--where trees, overhanging the rocks, formed a sort of roof
to a very narrow strip of ground.

"Oh! What shall we do?" cried Dorothy again. "We can never make our
way back to the others."

"But we must," declared Tavia. "I'm sure we cannot stay here long.
Isn't it a dreadful storm?"

Flash upon flash, and roar upon roar tumbled over the mountain with
that strange rumble peculiar to hills and hollows. Then the rain--

It seemed as if the storm came to the mountain first and lost half the
drops before getting farther down. It did pour with a vengeance.
Several times Tavia ventured to poke her head out to make weather
observations, but each time she was driven unceremoniously back into
shelter.

"It must be late!" sighed Dorothy.

"That it must!" agreed her companion, "and we have got to get out of
here soon. Rain or no rain, we can't stay here all night. The thunder