Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/197

 enthusiasm. We were in high glee,—couldn’t wait for our regular bedtime, but put our books aside early, covered the embers in the old stone fireplace, lighted a hand-lamp, and were ready for the ascension soon after eight o’clock.

Do you remember my telling you that one of the chief architectural oddities of this place was the lack of an entrance to the second floor from the inside of the house,—the only door to the stairway being an outside one at the end of a long narrow porch? Tom, in advance of me, lamp in hand, opened the door of the dining-room, gave a whistle of surprise, and began to sing,—

“What’s the matter, Tom?”

“Look and see!”

I looked, and beheld the darkness of a tomb. There was a torrent of rain and wind rushing through the wet fir trees, driving the flame of the lamp out of the chimney, smoking it black; the floor of the porch was all bumps and hollows,—mostly hollows, each filled with water, gleaming in the lamplight.

“It’s hideous, Tom; we can’t make it!”

“We’ve got to make it! Faint heart ne’er won the second floor of anything. I’ll hold my hat over the light, you lock the door, then we’ll dash for our lives!”

It was no dash, I can tell you. We went tiptoeing