“Does she want us?” asked Meg quickly.  “Oh!  What was that?”

“Thunder,” answered Mr. Harley, shortly.  “Your mother sent you two umbrellas, but I don’t think we’d better start now; the storm is ’most ready to break.  Guess you were having such a good time you never heard the rumbling.”

It was true.  The children had never glanced up, or they would have seen the great white clouds that, mounting higher and higher, gradually darkened and then shut out the sun.  They would have heard the angry mutterings of thunder and seen the sharp streaks of lightning, but the game of hunting for treasure had completely absorbed them.

“It will rain on us,” remarked Meg nervously.  “There isn’t any roof, you know.”

Then she blushed.  She wondered if Mr. Harley thought they were selfish to amuse themselves in his tumble-down home, and whether it was polite of her to mention that the roof was gone.

“We’ll have to make a roof,” said Mr. Harley capably.  “Let’s see; if we take that door and put it across these two barrels, that will keep the rain off.  Here’s a piece of oilcloth we can use for a curtain to shut the lightning out.  Now we’re as comfy as we would be in a regular house.”

While he spoke, he had lifted what had once been the front door of his house, placed it across two barrels and draped across the open side a large square of oilcloth that was cracked and creased in many places but still waterproof.  The barrels were against the one wall of the house left standing, so that, when all was fixed, the small shelter was fairly comfortable.

Bobby, feeling in his pocket for a nail to pin the oilcloth more securely, touched the queer object his shovel had unearthed that morning.

“Look what I found,” he said eagerly, holding out the little pointed specimen.

“Arrow head,” said Mr. Harley.  “Indians once lived on this island, and you’re likely to turn those things up most anywhere.  Will your mother be afraid alone in the bungalow?”

“Mother’s never afraid,” declared Bobby confidently, putting the arrow head back in his pocket to show his father.  “Oh, that lightning went right into the lake!”

“Better get in now,” Mr. Harley told them, holding up the oilcloth so that they could creep in under the door-roof.  “All in?  Then here I come.”

The rain was coming down in great, dashing torrents in another moment and the four little Blossoms were thankful for their dry corner.

“It’s a good thing we didn’t start out,” shouted Mr. Harley above the noise of the rain.  “We never could have made the bungalow before the rain caught us.  This will knock the apples off.  That’s a pity because they’re fine when they’re left to ripen.”

“Meg said they weren’t ripe yet,” said Bobby.

“I hope you didn’t try to eat any,” answered Mr. Harley earnestly.  “Green apples are not good for you.”

“Oh, we didn’t touch one,” Bobby assured him, trying to punch Twaddles, who was tickling him.  “Meg said they belonged to you.”