again.

Whatever it was that had happened, no one had been hurt; and at least they could find consolation in this.

"It's an earthquake!" exclaimed Bumpus, being the very first to recover the use of his voice.

"A landslide, you mean!" echoed Giraffe, contrary minded.

"Thad, you say?" asked Step Hen; just as though the leader could determine the nature of the calamity better than any one else.

"I think Giraffe struck it about right," Thad answered.

"You mean part of the hillside caved away?" further questioned Bumpus.

"Must have been the whole mountain top, by the racket it kicked up," Davy Jones grumbled; "say, my heart turned upside down; and I'll have to stand on my head to get it to working again the right way."

"And look at what it did to our snug old cabin; tore the whole end off!" observed Step Hen, ruefully. "Now, if it happened to be a cold night, why, we'd just be freezing to death, that's what. Anybody seen my cap around; my hair stood up on end with the scare, and I must have dropped it? Thank you, Allan, for picking it up. I do have the worst luck about losing my things you ever saw."

"Seems to me," remarked Allan, soberly, "that instead of complaining the way you fellows are doing, we ought to be mighty thankful it wasn't any worse."

"Yes, that's what I was thinking," Smithy added, as he let go Allan's arm, which he must have unconsciously gripped in his sudden fright; "what if we had run to that end of the cabin, things would look somewhat different right now."

"Ugh! guess that's right," Giraffe admitted; "and for one I ain't goin' to make any more complaint. But what under the sun was it hit us?"

"A big rock must have dropped down from the side of the mountain, and tore out the end of the old cabin," Thad explained. "It came on this night of all nights, just when we happened to be camped here. And the cabin has stood unharmed for as much as thirty years, Bob White says."

"I call that queer, now," said Bumpus.

"It's more than that, Bumpus," Smithy remarked, in his most mysterious manner; "I'd call it highly significant, if you asked my opinion."

"Wow! listen to that, would you?" exclaimed Step Hen, shuddering again. "He means that the rock was smashed down by somebody who wanted to chase us out of this region. And that must be our old friend, Phin Dady, the moonshiner!"

Thad bent down, and proceeded to light a handy little lantern which one of the boys had carried for emergencies.

"I'm going to take a look out, and see what struck us," he remarked.

"Be careful, Thad," warned Allan; "another rock might follow the first."

"And if you hear the least suspicious sound, jump for all that's out," added Bumpus, ready to admire the nerve of one who could face danger so readily, even though not capable of imitating Thad's example himself.

"Oh! I reckon there's little chance of anything like that happening," the other sent back, with a little laugh, as though he wanted to cheer his chums up; "you know, they say lightning never strikes in the same place twice. It's taken thirty years for a rock to hit this cabin, though plenty must have slid down the side of the mountain in that time. Be back in a jiffy, boys."

With that he stepped out of the door, which had been burst open when the log structure received such a terrific jolt. The other boys clustered there by the revived fire, exchanging views, and waiting for the return of those who had gone outside; for Bob White had silently followed Thad, as though he felt that since it was through his invitation that the scouts were placed in this predicament, he ought to do everything in his power to ease the strain.

When they entered again in less than ten minutes, of course a bombardment of eager questions saluted them.

"Slow up, fellows," Thad said, laughingly. "If I tried to answer you all, I'd be apt to get my tongue twisted some, and that's a fact. Yes, it was a rock that did the damage, just as we guessed. It rolled down from somewhere above; but we could only guess at that, it's so dark out there. And after taking a look at the size of the same, Bob and myself made up our minds we had reason to be mighty thankful that it only touched the end of the cabin, instead of hitting it square in the center."

"But whoever started it rolling?" demanded Bumpus; and it was evident from the way the others waited to hear what Thad would say to this, that they laid great stress on the answer.

"Well," returned the other, soberly, "of course we couldn't make dead certain, but after seeing the heft of that rock we believed that it was never started by any human hands. The rain and storm must have undermined it."

Bumpus heaved a big sigh of relief.

"Well," said he, "I'm glad of that. It's bad enough to think you're bein' bombarded by rocks that just take a silly notion to drop when we come along; but it'd be a heap sight worse if the men of the Big Smokies were throwing such pebbles at us, haphazard. Whew! I'm hungry, fellers; who says grub?"

That was just like a boy, to remember his natural appetite right on the heels of the greatest fright of his whole life. And as the others admitted to feeling somewhat the same way, there ensued a bustle to see how soon supper could be gotten ready.

The members of the Silver Fox Patrol were no longer greenhorns, though one or two of them gave evidence that they had not yet graduated from the tenderfoot class. They had learned a great deal about the things that are connected with a camp life, because they had spent some time under canvas on Lake Omega, which lay not many miles from their home town.

And then again, Thad had belonged to a troop of scouts before coming to Cranford; while, as for Allan, he had been through the mill so often up in Maine and elsewhere, that he was, as Bumpus declared, a "walking edition of what to do, and what not to do when in the woods."

It is true that on this big hike through the mountains they were compelled to travel very light, and would miss many of the things that had added greatly to their comfort on that other occasion. But then it was their desire to learn how to rough it, taking the knocks with the good things.

By this time some of the lads were beginning to believe that they would rub up against plenty of the "knocks" all right; especially if things kept on as they had commenced since striking this wonderful "Land of the Sky."

The supper put them in something like their customary good humor. Indeed, as they sat around the fire afterwards, Bumpus was induced to sing several of their school songs, so that the whole of them might join in the rollicking chorus. Strange sounds indeed to well up out of that valley, so lately the theater of a war between the elements, as lightning and rain vied with each other to produce a panic in the breasts of these same boys who now sang and joked as though they had not a care in the world.

Only Bob White remained very quiet. Thad often glanced toward the Southern lad, with sympathy in his look. He could easily understand that, with their arrival in this mountainous region, where the other had spent many of his earlier years, old memories must be revived, some pleasant, and possibly others of a disagreeable nature.

Finally they agreed that it would be wise to get some sleep, as another day lay before them. And accordingly, in the customary fashion, the bugler sounded "taps," and each scout tried to find a soft board, upon which he might rest his weary body during the hours that must elapse before dawn arrived.

A watch was kept up, one fellow taking an hour at a time, and then arousing the next on the