Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/127

 the road-side, with branches like great fronds that looked as if they would shelter him. He felt his way to it through the brush in the ditch, and stood there hesitating. Its trunk was wet, its roots in a sodden moss; and although he was already as wet as the moss was, he goose-fleshed at the thought of sitting down in it.

He wondered what he was going to do—how he was to spend the night.

He wanted to And a cave and crawl into it, away from all this intolerable noise and discomfort—a deep, dry cave, dark and still.

And then the lightning burst in the tree-top over his head. The bark of the hemlock under his hand exploded like a shell. He was thrown into the ditch and he sprang to his feet and ran with his mouth open, panting out a hoarse whisper that he thought was shrill, bounding along in great leaps, without falling, without leaving the road, with a curious sensation as if the lower part of him were a