“Rain,” said Henry.  “I’m sorry of that.  I wish it wouldn’t break before he overtook us.”

“S’pose we stop an’ make ready,” said Shif’less Sol.  “You know we ain’t bound to be in a big hurry, an’ it won’t help any o’ us to get a soakin’.”

“You’re shorely right, Sol,” said Jim Hart.  “We’re bound to take the best uv care uv ourselves.”

They looked around with expert eyes, and quickly chose a stony outcrop or hollow in the side of a hill, just above which grew two gigantic beeches very close together.  Then it was wonderful to see them work, so swift and skillful were they.  They cut small saplings with their hatchets, and, with the little poles and fallen bark of last year, made a rude thatch which helped out the thick branches of the beeches overhead.  They also built up the sides of the hollow with the same materials, and the whole was done in less than ten minutes.  Then they raked in heaps of dead leaves and sat down upon them comfortably.  Many drops of water would come through the leaves and thatch, but such as they, hardened to the wilderness, would not notice them.

Meanwhile the storm was gathering with the rapidity so frequent in the great valley.  All the little clouds swung together and made a big one that covered nearly the whole sky.  The air darkened rapidly.  Thunder began to growl and mutter and now and then emitted a sharp crash.  Lightning cut the heavens from zenith to horizon, and the forest would leap into the light, standing there a moment, vivid, like tracery.

A blaze more brilliant than all the rest cleft wide the sky and, as they looked toward the North, they saw directly in the middle of the flame a black dot that had not been there before.

“He’s coming,” said Henry in the quiet tone that indicated nothing more than a certainty fulfilled.

“Just in time to take a seat in our house,” said the shiftless one.

Sol ran out and gave utterance to a long echoing cry that sounded like a call.  It was answered at once by the new black dot under the Northern horizon, which was now growing fast in size, as it came on rapidly.  It took a human shape, and, thirty yards away, a fine, delicately-chiselled face, the face of a scholar and dreamer, remarkable in the wilderness, was revealed.  The face belonged to a youth, tall and strong, but not so tall and large as Henry.

“Here we are, Paul,” said Shif’less Sol.  “We’ve fixed fur you.”

“And mighty glad I am to overtake you fellows,” said Paul Cotter, “particularly at this time.”

He ran for the shelter just as the forest began to moan, and great drops of rain rushed down upon them.  He was inside in a moment, and each gave his hand a firm grasp.

“We’re all here now,” said Henry.

“All here and ready for the great work,” said Shif’less Sol, his tranquil face illumined again with that look of supreme exaltation.

Then the storm burst.  The skies opened and dropped down floods of water.  They heard it beating on the leaves and thatch overhead, and some came through, falling upon them but they paid no heed.  They sat placidly until the rush and roar passed, and then Henry said to the others: