98 THE LOG OF A TIMBER CRUISER 
slapped across camp by a blow from the heavy cloth. 
Wetherby’s was the voice we had heard. He was 
alternately calling for aid and anathematising the 
world, while Wallace, less loudly, but fully as heart- 
ily, berated his tent fellow for alleged contributory 
negligence. 
“‘Doggone it!’’ he cried, ‘‘didn’t I tell you not to 
fasten the ropes so tight? You might have known 
the tent would shrink and pull up the stakes!’’ 
We did not hear Horace’s defence. It is possible 
that he had none. 
After an extremely strenuous ten minutes the two 
unfortunates succeeded in securing the tent once 
more. They skipped inside like rats, and had no 
more than crawled into their wet beds when a blind- 
ing flash and a terrific thunder clap that seemed to 
split the earth came simultaneously. 
The air was full of flying wood and burning 
splinters. By the next quick flash we saw the cook 
tent hanging to a shattered tree.. We arose at once. 
Bert was stunned, but unhurt—a miracle in itself— 
and pulling his bed into one of the other tents we left 
him cursing as he crawled into his wet blankets and 
sought our own couches. 
On another occasion, a short time after this mid- 
night alarm, a thunderstorm was indirectly respon- 
sible for about the worst scare I got during the 
season. I was crossing a ridge between Shepherd 
Creek and East Canyon when the sound of thunder 
first came and I made haste to descend into the can- 
