Toward noon the day grew very warm and clouds gathered in the sky. The
wind became damp.
"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.
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