Driving a long iron stake into the ground, Dick tethered the animal securely.  Then he ran back to help his chums.

“Here’s the best site for the tent,” Prescott called, snatching up a stick and marking the site roughly.  “Now, hustle!  No; don’t use the wooden stakes for the tent ropes.  Drive the long iron stakes, and drive them deep!”

Then Prescott ran back with oats and corn for the horse, leaving a generous feed for the animal.

“You’ll need plenty to eat, old fellow, for the storm is going to be a long and cold one.”

Then Prescott ran back at full speed to his chums who were erecting the tent.

First, the four corner stakes were driven, and the guy-ropes made fast.

“Greg and Dan can drive all the other pins, if they hustle,” Dick announced.  “Tom, you and Dave get the floor planks down, and rig up the stove—–­inside the tent.”

“There won’t be time to lay the flooring,” Reade objected, taking a hurried squint at the now more threatening sky.

“There’s got to be time to lay the flooring, unless you all want to sleep in water to-night,” Dick insisted.  “Harry, just break your back with the loads of wood that you bring in.  I’ll fill all the buckets with water.”

In ten minutes more everything had been carried inside the tent.  Big drops of rain were beginning to patter down.

“We’ve everything ready just in time to the minute,” Tom Reade observed with a satisfied chuckle.

“Not everything quite ready,” Prescott retorted.  “Tom, if you’re going to grow up to be an engineer there’s one thing more you should see the need of.”

“What?” challenged Reade blankly.

“Get the pick and shovel!  You and I will do it.  Let the rest get in under shelter!”

Standing in the rain, Tom and Dick hastily dug two ditches at either end of the tent.  These ditches were no creditable engineering jobs, but they would, at need, carry a good deal of water down the slope.

By this time the rain was falling heavily.  In the distance heavy thunder volleyed, and the sky was growing blacker every minute.

“One more job,” called Dick.  “Dave and Greg, tumble out with the shelter flap!”

This was a great sheet of canvas that had to be fastened in place over the tent roof, and at a different pitch.

“We’ll be drowned before we get the shelter flap in place,” grumbled Tom.

“And we might as well be out in the rain, if we don’t have it up,” Dick retorted.  “Open her up!  Now, then—–­up with it!”

The shelter flap was placed with difficulty, for now the wind was driving across the country, blowing everything before it.  The other two boys leaped out to help their chums.  The shelter flap was made secure at last, the ropes being made fast to the surrounding trees.

By this time the wind was blowing at the rate of fifty miles an hour.  The sky was nearly as black as on a dark night, while the rain was coming down “like another Niagara,” as Harry Hazelton put it.