"Can you unscramble eggs?" Pee-wee demanded.

"There you go, talking about eats again. Can't you wait two hours?"

There was nothing to do but wait, and watch the drops as they pattered down on the lake.

"This is the longest rain in history except the reign of Queen Elizabeth," Roy said. "If I ever meet Saint Swithin——"

This sort of talk was a sample of life at Temple Camp for seven days past. Those who were not given to jollying and banter had fallen back on checkers and dominos and other wild sports. A few of the more adventurous and reckless made birchbark ornaments, while those who were in utter despair for something to do wrote letters home.

Several dauntless spirits had braved the rain to catch some fish, but the fish, themselves disgusted, stayed down at the bottom of the lake, out of the wet, as Roy said. It was so wet that even the turtles wouldn't come out without umbrellas.

Rain, rain, rain. It flowed off the pavilion roof like a waterfall. It shrunk tent canvas which pulled on the ropes and lifted the pegs out of the soggy ground. It buried the roads in mud. Hour in and hour out the scouts sat along the back of the deep veranda, beguiling their enforced leisure with banter and riddles and camp gossip.

On Friday afternoon a brisk wind arose and blew the rain sideways so that most of the scouts withdrew from their last entrenchment and went inside. You have to take off your hat to a rain which can drive a scout in out of the open.

It began blowing in across the veranda in fitful little gusts and within an hour the wind had lashed itself into a gale. A few of the hardier spirits, including Roy, held their ground on the veranda, squeezing back against the shingled side whenever an unusually severe gust assailed them.

There is no such thing as twilight in such weather, but the sodden sky grew darker, and the mountainside across the lake became gloomier and more forbidding as the night drew on apace.

The few remaining stragglers on the veranda watched this darkening scene with a kind of idle half interest, ducking the occasional gusts.

"How would you like to be out on the lake now?" one asked.

The question directed their gaze out upon the churning, black sheet of water before them. The lake, lying amid those frowning, wooded hills, was somber enough at all times, and a quiet gloom pervaded it which imparted a rare charm. But now, in the grip of the rain and wind, the enshrouding night made the lake seem like a place haunted, and the enclosing mountains desolate and forlorn.

"I'll swim across with anybody," said Hervey Willetts.

He belonged in a troop from western New York and reveled in stunts which bespoke a kind of blithe daring. No one took him up and silence reigned for a few minutes more.

"There's the little light on the top of the mountain," said Will Dawson of Roy's patrol. "If there's anybody up there, I hope he has an umbrella."

But of course there was no one up there. For weeks the tiny light away up on the summit of that mountain wilderness had puzzled the scouts of camp. They had not, indeed, been able to determine that it was a light; it seemed rather a tiny patch of brightness which was always brighter when the moon shone. This had led to the belief that it was caused by some kind of natural phenomena.

The scouts fixed their gaze upon it, watching it curiously for a few moments.

"It isn't a reflection, that's sure," said Roy, "or we wouldn't see it on a night like this."

"It's a phosphate," said Pee-wee.

"It's a chocolate soda," said Roy.

"You're crazy!" Pee-wee vociferated. "Phosphate is something that shines in the dark."

"You mean phosphorus," said Westy Martin.

That seemed a not unlikely explanation. But the consensus of opinion in camp was that the bright patch was the reflection of some powerful light in the low country on the opposite side of the mountain.

"It's a mystery," said Pee-wee, "that's what it is."

Suddenly, while they gazed, it went out. They watched but it did not come again. And the frowning, jungle-covered, storm beaten summit was enshrouded again in ghostly darkness. And the increasing gale beat the lake, and the driven rain assailed the few stragglers on the veranda with lashing fury. And across the black water, in that ghoul-haunted, trackless wilderness, could be heard the sound of timber being rent in splinters and of great trees crashing down the mountainside.

Suddenly a word from Westy Martin aroused them all like a cannon shot.

"Look!" he shouted, "Look! Look at the springboard!"

Every one of them looked, speechless, astonished, aghast, at the sight which they beheld before their very eyes.

There, just below them was the springboard an inch or two above the surface of the lake. Ordinarily it projected from the shore nearly a yard above the water, but lately the swollen lake had risen above it. Now, however, it was visible again just above the surface.

This meant that the water had receded more in an hour than it had risen in a whole week. The strong wind was blowing toward the pavilion and would naturally force the water up along that shore. But in spite of the wind the water in the lake was receding at an alarming rate. Something was wrong. The little trickle from the spring up behind the camp had grown into a torrent and was pouring into the lake. Yet the water in the lake was receding.

Down out of the mountain wilderness across the water came weird noises, caused no doubt by the tumult of the wind in the intricate fastnesses and by the falling of great trees, but the sounds struck upon the ears of the besieged listeners like voices wild and unearthly. The banging of the big shutters of the pavilion was heard in echo as the furious gale bore the sounds back from the mountain and the familiar, homely noise was conjured into a kind of ghostly clamor.

"There goes Pee-wee's signal tower," a scout remarked, and just as he spoke, the little rustic edifice which had been the handiwork and pride of the tenderfoots went crashing to the ground while out of the woods across the water came sounds as of merry laughter at its downfall.

"Something's wrong over on the other side," said Westy Martin of Roy's patrol; "the lake's breaking through over there."

Scarcely had he uttered the words when all the scouts of the little group were at the railing craning their necks and straining their eyes trying to see across the water. But the wind and rain beat in their faces and the driving downpour formed an impenetrable mist.

As they withdrew again into the comparative shelter of the porch they saw a young fellow standing with his bare arm upraised against the door-jam, watching and listening. This was the young camp assistant, Tom Slade. He had evidently come out to fasten the noisy shutters and had paused to contemplate the tempest.

"Some storm, hey, Tomasso?" said Roy.

"I think the water's going out through the cove," said Tom. "It must have washed away the land over there."

"Let it go, we can't stop it," said Roy.

"If it's running out into the valley, it's good-night to Berry's garage, and the bridge too," said Tom.

The young assistant was popular with the boys at camp, and struck by this suggestion of imminent catastrophe, they clustered about him, listening eagerly. So loud was the noise of the storm, so deafening the sound of rending timber on that gale-swept height before them, that Tom had to