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