"Dave and Greg, tumble out with the shelter flap!" This was a great sheet of canvas that had to be fastened in place over the tent roof, and at a different pitch.
"We'll be drowned before we get the shelter flap in place," grumbled Tom.
"And we might as well be out in the rain, if we don't have it up," Dick retorted.

"Open her up! Now, then---up with it!" The shelter flap was placed with difficulty, for now the wind was driving across the country, blowing everything before it.
The other two boys leaped out to help their chums.

The shelter flap was made secure at last, the ropes being made fast to the surrounding trees.
By this time the wind was blowing at the rate of fifty miles an hour.

The sky was nearly as black as on a dark night, while the rain was coming down "like another Niagara," as Harry Hazelton put it.
"We don't care whether we have a dry tent or not, now," laughed Dan Dalzell, as the six boys made a break for cover.

"We're soaking, anyway, and a little more water won't hurt." "I'll get a fire going in the stove," Dick smiled.