place to eat in," grumbled Helen.

"Let's go above stairs. Carry that alcohol stove carefully, dear. We'll
have a nice cup of tea, even if it does----"

"Oh!" shrieked Helen, as a long streak of lightning flew across their
line of vision.

"Yes. Even in spite of _that_," repeated Ruth, smiling, and raising her
voice that she might be heard above the cannonade of thunder.

"I don't like it, I tell you!" declared her chum.

"I can't say that I do myself, but I do not see how we are to help it."

"I wish Tom was inside here, too."

Ruth had glanced through the window and seen that Master Tom had managed
to get the auto under a shed at the back. He was industriously putting
up the curtains to the car, and making all snug against the rain, before
he began to tinker with the machinery.

There was a faint drumming in the air--the sound of rain coming down the
mountain side, beating its "charge" upon the leaves as it came. There
were no other sounds, for the birds and insects had sought shelter
before the wrathful face of the storm.

Yes! there was one other. The girls had not heard it until they began
climbing the stairs out of the side entry. Helen clutched Ruth suddenly
by the skirt.

"Hear that!" she whispered.

"Say it out loud, dear, do!" exclaimed the girl of the Red Mill. "There
is never anything so nerve-shaking as a stage whisper."

"There! you heard it?"

"The wind rustling something," said Ruth, attempting to go on.

"No."

"Something squeaks--mice, I do believe."

"Mice would starve to death here," declared Helen.

"How smart of you! That is right," agreed Ruth. "Come on. Let us see
what it is--if it's upstairs."

Helen clung close to her and trembled. There was the rustling, squeaking
sound again. Ruth pushed on (secretly feeling rather staggered by the
strange noise), and they entered one of the larger upper chambers.

Immediately she saw an open stovepipe hole in the chimney. "The noise
comes from that," she declared, setting down the basket and pointing.

"But what is it?" wailed her frightened chum.

"The wind?"

"Never!"

The lightning flashed again, and the thunder rolled nearer. Helen
screamed, crouched down upon the floor, and covered her ears, squeezing
her eyelids tight shut too.

"Dreadful! dreadful!" she gasped.

Still the silence outside between the reports of thunder; but the
rustling in the chimney continued. Ruth looked around, found a piece of
broken window-sash on