thread is carefully unwound on to little spools,
and is ready to be made into thread or spun into silk.

"And now, children, it's time for you to spin your dreams. Shake up
Peter, and we'll get ready for the night. Too bad to leave this fire,
but we can have one as often as we want."

The boys slept like tops, but there were two little girls who lay rather
wide awake most of the night, listening to the strangest grunting sounds
in the world.

XIII

STORM-BOUND

After two glorious days of exploring--"exploricating," the guides called
it--the children went to bed early, expecting to make an early start to
hunt partridge. They were so tired from their good times that for two or
three hours they slept like tops.

But in front of the cabin Ben Gile and Mrs. Reece and the other guides
were looking at the night sky anxiously. The lightning flashed more and
more vividly, black clouds were coming nearer and nearer. What was a
distant rumble soon became a near-by, long undertow of ominous sound.
Nearer and nearer it came, until every flash was followed by a sound
like ripping.

Mrs. Reece was very uneasy, for she did not like to have the children in
the tents alone. But soon Betty and Hope came scampering through the
dark to the cabin. They were surprised to see the older people up.
Before long the boys also came to the cabin rubbing their eyes, yawning,
and pretending not to care whether there was to be a cyclone or a
cloud-burst.

For a while all sat waiting for the storm to break. When it did break,
what torrents of rain and wind descended! How the trees groaned and
cracked! How the rain roared upon the shingled roof, and how the wind
howled through the mountain valley!

"Well," said Ben Gile, "let's have a fire in the fireplace, then we can
have a crackle of our own." He had noticed how nervous Mrs. Reece grew,
and that the little girls were watching her. He could not help thinking
that it was foolish, even wicked, to waste strength in fear of something
which no one of them could stop. "Build a fire, boys." And build a fire
they did--a royal good blaze. "Now throw on some of those pine-cones you
children gathered." There was a flare in the cabin almost as bright as
the incessant flare of the lightning outside. "I'll tell you what we'll
do," he continued, "we will have a midnight spread. We will have some of
Tom's famous flapjacks. Mrs. Reece, don't you want to make molasses
candy, and then the children ca