"There's a freshet coming, and
Lurvey's Stream is between us and Boundary Camp. If we don't start soon,
we can't get there at all."
Just as he finished speaking a deep, portentous rumbling began and
continued for several seconds. The distant mountain sides seemed to
reverberate with it, and at the end the whole forest shook with heavy,
jarring sounds. We both leaped out into the rain.
"What is it, Ad?" I cried.
"Earthquake," said Addison at last. "I've heard the old Squire say that
one sometimes comes in Maine, when there is a great winter thaw."
The deep jar and tremor gave us a strange sense of insecurity and
terror; there seemed to be no telling what might happen next.
Accordingly, we abandoned our moist den and set off in the rain. We went
halfway to our knees at every step in the now soft, slushy snow. Addison
went ahead with the hatchet, spotting a tree every hundred feet or so,
and I followed in his tracks, carrying the basket and the gun. In
fifteen minutes we were wet to our skins.
For three or four miles we were uncertain of our course. The forest then
lightened ahead, and presently we came out on the shore of a small lake
that looked yellow over its whole surface.
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