The manager and Gerard personally escorted the rah-rah boys off the grounds of the Ashbury Terraces, and they were seen no more thereabouts.  Who they were was not learned, but Gerard’s word was accepted that the rah-rah boys had no connection with Saunders College.

Dick & Co. had two more pleasant meetings with their high school friends before an about-face was made, and the return hike to Gridley started.

Their liveliest adventures were yet ahead of them.

CHAPTER XV

MAKING PORT IN A STORM

“Did you ever see a blacker, more peculiar looking cloud coming than that one?” demanded Tom Reade, as the high school boys emerged from the gloom of a long, narrow forest road into comparatively open country.

“Is it a coming storm, or an optical delusion?” pondered Dick, halting and staring hard.

“It looks like pictures I’ve seen of water spouts,” Greg declared.

“That’s what it is,” Dick replied quietly.  “Though I’ve never seen one before, it’s hard to be fooled, for that chap looks just like his published photographs.  And look at that queer, brownish, half-yellowish sky back of it.  It certainly looks forbidding.”

“And we’re going to have a stormy afternoon of it!” muttered Dave.

“The waterspout will go by to the north,” Reade conjectured, studying the oddly-shaped, rapidly moving and twisting blackish cloud, “but we’re going to be right in line with the main storm that is traveling with it.”

“And we’ve got to prepare against the weather, too!” Dick cried, with sudden realization.  “Fellows, the storm that is coming down on us isn’t going to be any toy zephyr!”

After leaving Ashbury the boys had decided to return to Gridley by a different road.

“There’s the place for us, if we can make it!” cried Dick an instant later, pointing toward the slope.

“Dave, whip up the horse.  He has to travel fast for his own safety.  Tom and Greg, you get behind and push the wagon up the slope.  We’ll all help in turn.  But hustle!”

The crest of the rise of ground being made, the boys found themselves entering another forest.  Dick here found the ground as favorable to his purpose as he had hoped it would be, for on the further side the land sloped downward again, and was well-wooded.

“Drive in there!” called Prescott, pointing, then ran ahead to find the best spot for pitching the tent.

“Whoa!” yelled Prescott, when he had reached the spot that he judged would do best for camp purposes.  “Now, Dave, go over to the other side of the horse!  Help me to get him out of the shafts.  The poor animal must be our first consideration, for he can’t help himself.  The rest of you unload all the stuff from the wagon as fast as you can move.”

Slipping the harness from the horse, Dick fastened a halter securely, then ran the horse down into a little gully where the animal would be best protected from the force of the wind that would come with the storm.