ts
rattled in volleys. Thunder-artillery boomed until the very rocks seemed
'to shake.

"It's fine!" exclaimed Cyrus. "It's super-fine!"

Then a curtain of thick rain partly hid the warfare, the lightning still
rioting through it like a beacon of battle.

"The stones up above will have to be pretty firmly fixed to keep their
places," said Herb. "Boys, I hope there ain't a-going to be slides on
the mountain after this."

"Slides?" echoed Dol questioningly.

"Landslides, kid. Say! if you want to be scared until your bones feel
limp, you've got to hear a great big block of granite come ploughing
down from the top 'o the mountain, bringing earth and bushes along with
it, and smashing even the rocks to splinters as it pounds along."

"I guess that's a sensation we'd rather be spared," said Cyrus gravely.

And under the quieting spell of the airy warfare there was silence for a
while.

"Do you think it's lightening up, Herb?" asked Neal, after the storm had
raged for three-quarters of an hour.

"I guess it is. The rain is stopping too. But we'll have an awful slushy
time of it getting back to camp. To plough through them soaked forests
below would be enough to give you city fellows a shaking ague."

"Couldn't we climb on to your old log camp?" suggested Garst. "If we
have the luck to find the old shanty holding together, we can light a
fire there after things dry out a bit, and eat our snack. Then we
needn't be in a hurry to get down. We'll risk it, anyhow."

"I reckon that's about the only thing to be done," assented the guide.

And in twenty minutes' time the four were again straining up Katahdin,
clutching slippery rocks, sinking in sodden earth, shivering as they
were besprinkled by every bush and dwarfed tree, and dreadfully hampered
with their rifles.

"Never mind, boys; we'll get there! Clinch yer teeth, and don't squirm!
Once we're past this tangle, the bit of climbing that's left will be as
easy as rolling off a log!"

So shouted Herb cheerfully, as he tore a way with hand and foot through
the stunted growth of alders and birch, which, beaten down by the winds,
was now an almost impassable, sopping tangle.

"Keep in my tracks!" he bellowed again. "Gracious! but this sort o' work
is as slow as molasses crawling up-hill in winter."

But ten minutes later, when the dripping jungle was behind, he dropped
his jesting tone.

He came to a full stop, catching his breath with a big gulp.

"Boys," he cri