"I should be delighted," said Hubbard, his voice concealing the uneasiness he felt. "Indeed I should."
More men appeared and at the same time a roll of thunder tumbled across the darkening sky. A sudden mountain storm had arisen.
The pedestrians found themselves surrounded by a line of grim and silent men who appeared to be waiting for orders from Tolliver.
A few large drops of rain come slanting down from the advancing fringe of the sable-cloud, and again the thunder bounded across the heavens.
"I guess you'd better invite us in," suggested Cattleton, turning to the old man, who stood leaning on his tin horn. "The ladies will get wet."
"I say, Cattleton," called out Bartley Hubbard, "if a fellow only had a little supply of Stockton's negative gravity he could ameliorate his condition, don't you think?"
"Yes, I'd like to fall up hill just now. The excitement would be refreshing."
There came a spiteful dash of rain and a flurry of wind.
"You'ns had better go inter the still-house," said Tolliver. "Hit air goin' ter rain yearlin' calves. Go right erlong in, ye sha'n't be hurt."
Another gush of rain enforced the invitation, and they all scrambled into the cabin pell-mell, glad of the relief from a strain that had become almost unbearable to some of them, but they stared at each other when they found the door closed and securely locked on the outside.
"Prisoners!" cried some one whose voice was drowned by a deafening crash of thunder and a mighty flood of rain that threatened to crush in the rickety roof of the house.
"The treacherous villain!" exclaimed Dufour, speaking of Tolliver and holding Miss Moyne's hand. The poor girl was so frightened that it was a comfort to her to have her hand held.
"How grand, how noble it is in Mr. Tolliver and his friends," said Miss Crabb, "to stand out there in the rain and let us have the shelter! I never saw a more virile and thoroughly unselfish man than he is. He is one of Nature's unshorn heroes, a man of the ancient god-like race."
Mrs. Nancy Jones Black gave the young woman a look of profound contempt.
Then a crash of thunder, wind, and rain scattered everybody's thoughts.
The storm was wild enough, but of short duration, and it came to its end as suddenly as it had begun. As the black cloud departed from the sky, the darkness, which had been almost a solid inside the still-house, was pierced by certain lines of mild light coming through various chinks in the walls and roof. Our friends examined one another curiously, as if to be sure that it was not all a dream.