and
Patricia, however, were silent. At the first suggestion of the threatening
sound Harriet had leaped from her cot. She stood with one hand slightly
raised, her head bent forward ever so little, her eyes tightly closed,
every nerve in her body centred on listening to the disturbing sound,
seeking to discover its meaning. Then all at once it occurred to her what
it was.

Harriet acted instantly.

"Down!" she cried sharply. "Under the cots! Quick! Do as I tell you!
Tommy! Are you under?"

"Yeth. Oh, thave me!" came a muffled voice that seemed to be under the
floor of the tent.

Patricia and Cora, recognizing that Harriet had some well defined plan in
mind, obeyed her without the slightest hesitation. They threw themselves
on the floor hastily crawling under the cots. Then Harriet Burrell made a
sudden dive. She was standing several feet from her own bed. The dive sent
her sliding underneath the nearest cot. Her progress was stopped by the
body of one of her companions.

She had sought cover none too soon. The most terrific crashing that any of
those girls ever had listened to, filled the air. Above the uproar was
heard faintly the scream of a girl somewhere outside the tent. Then the
blow fell, a mighty, crushing blow that seemed to set the universe all a
tremble.

CHAPTER XX

THE FALL OF A FOREST KING

"Thave me!" moaned the unhappy Tommy, but her voice was lost in the volume
of sound that fairly overwhelmed the occupants of the tent.

Almost at the instant that the first alarm had reached her ears, Harriet
Burrell recognized the nature of the sound. She had heard it before though
in a lesser degree. A tree was falling. She remembered a tall aged pine
that stood a short distance to the south of the tent. Between the tree and
the tent was a fairly open space, that was filled principally with
saplings and scrub undergrowth. Harriet in that moment understood, she
thought, that the heavy downpour of rain had weakened the hold of the aged
roots of the tree in the ground. The heavy wind blowing against the old
pine had been too much for the weakened roots. The tree was falling with
mighty crashings and reports that sounded like the explosions of firearms.

To run, Harriet believed might be attended with serious consequences to
them, for the long limbs of the tree were penetrating the tent roof
before she had fairly gotten her companions underneath the cots. The tent
was swept down as Harriet was diving u