The thunder, too, was terrific and incessant, shaking the earth as it reverberated. All at once came a crash that seemed as if it must have split the earth wide open. Balls of green and white fire spattered in every direction. The boys were hurled helter–skelter all over the hut. It was almost pitch dark, and they called to each other nervously. Not one knew but that the other might have been killed or seriously injured. But although bruised and badly scared, they were all right, it was found. Yet as they scrambled to their feet the lightning outside showed them a still form lying across the door of the hut. “It’s the hermit!” cried Jack. “He’s dead!” shouted Ralph. “Hold on a minute,” warned Jack. He went outside and Walt helped him drag the old man into the hut. The lightning, by one of those freaks for which it is noted, had stripped his miserable collection of rags right off him and there did not appear to be much life in him. The boys laid him on a table and then lighted a lantern, for it was too dark to see but by artificial light. All this time the storm raged and crashed alarmingly about them, but they were too intent on discovering a spark of life in the old hermit to pay any attention to it. “Get some water, quick!” ordered Jack. There was a tub in one corner of the hut and the boys dipped cloths into it, which Jack applied to the base of the old man’s skull. After a time, to Jack’s great delight, the old hermit began to give signs of recovery. He opened his queer, bloodshot eyes and looked up at the boys. “How do you feel?” asked Jack. “As if I’d bin kicked by a blamed mule,” answered Mad Mat. The boys could not help laughing at his whimsical description of the effects of the lightning. “It took all the—the————”—Jack hesitated as to what to call the hermit’s rags—“the clothes off you.” “Consarn it, so it did,” grunted the old man, sitting up. “The last time it hit me it did the same thing.” “What! Have you been hit before?” demanded the boys in astonishment. “Sure. This makes the third time, an’ I guess as I’ve got through this safely, I’m all right now.” “Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” declared Walt with a grin, “but once would be quite enough for me.” “Anyhow, it didn’t rain,” said the hermit triumphantly. “I told yer it wouldn’t.” It was all the boys could do to keep from breaking out into hearty laughter at the strange old man who seemed to mind being hit by lightning no more than any ordinary occurrence. “Waal, now I’ve got to stitch all them rags together agin,” he said presently in a complaining tone, regarding the scattered collection of stuff that had been torn off him by the lightning. “Gracious! I should think you’d get a new outfit,” declared Jack. The hermit glowered at him. “Git a new outfit? What’d I git a new outfit fer? Ain’t them clothes as good as ever? All they want is stitching together agin and they’ll be as good as new.”