e washed away the land over there."

"Let it go, we can't stop it," said Roy.

"If it's running out into the valley, it's good-night to Berry's garage,
and the bridge too," said Tom.

The young assistant was popular with the boys at camp, and struck by
this suggestion of imminent catastrophe, they clustered about him,
listening eagerly. So loud was the noise of the storm, so deafening the
sound of rending timber on that gale-swept height before them, that Tom
had to raise his voice to make himself heard. The danger to human life
which he had been the first to think of, gave the storm new terror to
these young watchers. It needed only this touch of mortal peril in that
panorama of dreadfulness to arouse them, good scouts that they were, to
the chances of adventure and the possibility of service.

"We can't do anything, can we?" one asked. "It's too late now, isn't
it?"

"It's either too late or it isn't," said Tom Slade; "and it's for us to
see. I was thinking of Berry's place, and I was thinking of the crowd
that's coming up tonight on the bus. If the water has broken through
across the lake and is pouring into the valley, it'll wash away the
bridge. The bus ought to be here now. There are two troops from the
four-twenty train at Catskill. Maybe the train is late on account of the
weather. If the bridge is down...."

"Call up Berry's place and find out," said Westy Martin.

"That's just what has me worrying," said Tom; "Berry's doesn't answer."

CHAPTER III

AN IMPORTANT MISSION

Temple Camp was situated on a gentle slope close to the east shore of
the lake. Save for this small area of habitable land the lake was
entirely surrounded by mountains. And it was the inverted forms of these
mountains reflected in the water which gave it the somber hue whence the
lake derived its name. On sunless days and in the twilight, the water
seemed as black as night.

Directly across the water from the camp, the most forbidding of those
surrounding heights reared its deeply wooded summit three thousand feet
above the sea level. A wilderness of tangled underbrush, like barbed
wire entanglements, baffled the hardiest adventurer. No scout had
penetrated those dismal fastnesses which the legend of camp reputed to
be haunted.

Beside the rocky base of this mountain was a tiny cove, a dim, romantic
little place, where the water was as still as in a pool. Its two sides
were the lower reaches of the great mountain and its