Fortunately the last peg had been secured. The flap was laced down quickly. In the semi-darkness of the sudden twilight the girls and Mrs. Havel stood together and listened to the rain drum upon the taut canvas. How it sounded! Worse than the rain on a tin roof! Peering out through the slit in the middle of the tent-flap they could see nothing but a gray wall of water. Suddenly there was a glaring blue flash, followed soon by the roar of the thunder. Several of the girls cried out and crouched upon the ground. "Oh, dear me! this is awful!" groaned Grace again. Mina Everett was sobbing with the pain in her thumb and her fear of the lightning. "Now, this will never do, girls," admonished Wyn Mallory. "Come! we can set up the alcohol lamp and make tea. That will help some. There are crackers and some ham, and a whole big bottle of olives. Why! we sha'n't starve for supper, that's sure." "I--I don't know as I want to eat," quavered Mina. "Pshaw! We Go-Aheads must not be afraid of a little storm----" Wyn's voice was drowned in the clap of thunder which accompanied an awful flash of lightning. With both came a splintering crash, the tent seemed to rock, and for a moment its interior was vividly illuminated by the electric bolt. The lightning had struck near at hand. CHAPTER VIII AT WINDMILL FARM Both Wyn and Mrs. Havel--the bravest of the seven gathered in the big tent--were frightened by this awful shock. The other girls clung to them, Mina and Grace sobbing aloud. "I--I feel as though that bolt fairly seared my eyeballs," groaned Frank Cameron. "Oh, dear! Here's another!" But this flash was not so severe. The girls peered out of the slit in the front of the tent and screamed again in alarm. The rain had passed for the moment. There, not many rods away, stood an old, half-dead oak with its top all ablaze. "That is where the lightning struck," cried Wyn. "It is fortunate our tent was no nearer to that side of the plateau," observed Mrs. Havel. Then the rain commenced again, and the thudding on the canvas drowned out their voices for a time. Somehow Wyn managed to get supper. The thunder and lightning gradually subsided; but for an hour the rain came in intermittent dashes and it was nine o'clock before they could venture forth into the cool, damp air. They had eaten their simple meal and set up the sleeping cots (which were likewise of canvas) before that. There was a flooring of matched planks to be laid, too; but the rain had wet them and the girls would have to wait for to-morrow's sun to dry them. "Oh! I don't believe living under canvas is going to be half so nice as we thought," complained Mina. "I never _did_ think about its storming." "A bad beginning makes a good ending," quoted Mrs. Havel, brightly. "This is only for one night." "Excuse me! I don't want another like it, Auntie," declared her niece. They could have no lamp to see to go to bed by, save Wyn's pocket electric flash.