With a shriek and a roar the norther was upon them. The wind blew with
terrific violence, and rain dashed in great sheets against the windows
and drummed on the roof with a noise that made it difficult for the men
to hear the sound of each other's voices. The building quivered and
trembled as the fierce gusts shook it in their grasp, and it seemed as
though it must be torn away from its foundations. But it had been stoutly
built with an eye to resisting just such storms, and held firm. The air
was filled with grass, bits of planking, and other wreckage that it had
picked up in its furious course. The boys gazed out the windows,
wondering mightily at the tremendous force of the gale, which closely
approached that of a cyclone. They had been in storms at sea, and a
gale was no new thing to them, but this surpassed anything of the kind
they had ever seen.
"I'm mighty glad we weren't caught out in this," shouted Bert into the
ears of Tom and Dick. "I never thought it _could_ rain so."
And his astonishment was shared by his friends. "Rain" hardly seemed an
adequate word to describe the torrents that poured down.
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