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. CHAPTER II THE BRIDGE