Kiki suddenly flew at Snowy, screaming with rage. She had had her eye on that tin of sliced peaches, and to see Snowy nosing round it was too much for her. She gave him a sharp peck on his nose, and he ran to Philip, bleating. Everyone laughed and felt better.
They sat there, eating by the tents, occasionally glancing up at the mountain that towered so steeply above them. It had no gentle slope up to the summit, as most of the mountains around had, but was steep and forbidding.
“I don’t much like this mountain,” said Lucy-Ann.
“Why?” asked Dinah.
“I don’t know. I just don’t like it,” said Lucy-Ann. “I’ve got one of my ‘feelings’ about it.”
The others laughed. Lucy-Ann often had “feelings” about things, and really believed in them. It was just like her to start having “feelings” about the mountain, when everyone was also having uncomfortable ideas about wolves and other things.
“Well, you needn’t have any ‘feelings’ about mountains,” said Philip. “Mountains are all the same — just tops, middles and bottoms, sometimes with sheep on and sometimes without!”
“But not many have wolves,” said Lucy-Ann seriously, and that made the others feel uncomfortable again.
“What are we going to do today?” asked Jack, when they had finished their meal. “I suppose we must stay here till Bill comes to find us. We can’t try to walk back home, because for one thing we don’t know the way, and for another we’d never be able to carry enough food to get there without starving.”
“We’d far better stay here,” said Philip at once. “It’s ten chances to one David will know his way back here all right, and can bring Bill and the donkeys. Whereas if we start moving about, they’ll never find us.”
“Yes — it does seem the most sensible thing to do,” said Jack. “We’ve got our camp here — tents set up and everything — so we might as well make the best of it, and enjoy the camping. I wish there was somewhere to bathe though. It’s so jolly hot. That little stream’s too small to do anything but paddle in.”
“Let’s all keep together,” said Lucy-Ann. “I mean — we could frighten those wolves away perhaps if we all screamed at them — but one of us alone might be — might be . . .”
“Gobbled up!” said Jack, and laughed. “What big eyes you’ve got, Granny! And, oh, what big TEETH you’ve got!”
“Don’t tease her,” said Philip, seeing Lucy-Ann’s alarmed face. “It’s all right, Lucy-Ann. Wolves are only really hungry in the wintertime and it’s summer now.”
Lucy-Ann looked relieved. “Well — I suppose if they’d been really hungry they would have attacked the donkeys, wouldn’t they?” she said. “Oh dear — I do think it’s most extraordinary to find wolves here.”
They were just about to get up and clear away the picnic things when something curious happened that froze them to the ground.
First of all there was a grumbling, rumbling noise that seemed to come from the heart of the mountain itself — and then the ground shook a little. The four children distinctly felt it quivering beneath them, and they clutched at one another in alarm. Kiki flew straight up into the air, screaming. Snowy leapt to a high rock and stood there, poised on his four little legs as if to take off in the air like a plane.
The ground stopped shaking. The noise died away. But almost immediately the rumbling began again, a little louder, but very muffled as if great depths of rock separated it from the listeners. The ground quivered once more and Snowy took a flying leap into the air, landing on another rock. He was really terrified.
So were the four children. Lucy-Ann, very pale, clung to Jack and Philip. Dinah, forgetting all about the slow-worm, held on to Philip too.
There were no more rumblings, and the earth beneath them stayed still. The birds, which had stopped singing and calling, began to chirp again, and a yellow-hammer gave his familiar cry.
Snowy recovered herself and came bounding up to the others. Kiki landed on Jack’s shoulder. “God save the King,” she said, in a relieved voice.
“What in the world was that?” said Philip at last. “An earthquake? Gosh, I was scared!”
“Oh, Philip! This mountain isn’t a volcano, is it?” said Lucy-Ann, gazing up at it fearfully.
“Of course not! You’d know a volcano all right if you saw one!” said Jack. “This is a perfectly ordinary mountain — and goodness knows why it should have rumbled like that, and trembled beneath us. It gave me a horrible feeling.”
“I told you I had one of my ‘feelings’ about this mountain,” said Lucy-Ann. “Didn’t I? I feel very queer about it. I want to go back to the farm-house and not stay here.”
“So do we all,” said Philip. “But we shouldn’t know the way, Lucy-Ann. It isn’t as if we’d followed a track — we left the track as you know, and part of the time we were in thick mist — we shouldn’t have the faintest idea of the way.”
“I know you’re right,” said Lucy-Ann. “But I don’t like this mountain — especially when it starts to rumble and shake! What made it?”
Nobody knew. They got up, cleared away the meal and went to splash in the little stream. The wind suddenly began to blow rather chilly, and, looking up, the children saw that big clouds were coming up from the south-west.
“Looks like rain,” said Jack. “I hope the wind doesn’t get up much more, or it will blow our tents away. Do you remember how they were blown clean away from over us on our last adventure — on the Island of Birds? That was an awful feeling.”
“Well,” said Philip, “if you really think the tents might blow away, Jack, we’d better find a better place to camp than this — somewhere not too far, though, because we don’t want to miss seeing Bill and David when they come for us. A copse of trees or a cave or somewhere like that — right out of the wind.”
“Let’s look now,” said Dinah, pulling on her coat. It was extraordinary how cold it got as soon as the sun went in and the wind blew up the mountain. “We’d better take Snowy with us, or he’ll eat everything we’ve left!”
Snowy had every intention of coming with them. He capered along by Philip and Jack, as mad as ever. He was now very annoyed with Kiki, and leapt at her whenever she came within reach, wanting to pay her back for nipping his nose.
When the girls had been left a little way behind, Philip spoke in a low voice to Jack. “We’d better find a cave, I think, Jack — I don’t like the idea of those animals prowling around us at night — wolves, or whatever they are. If we were in a cave we could light a fire at the entrance and that would keep any animal off.”
“Yes. That’s quite a good idea,” agreed Jack. “I hadn’t thought of that. I can’t say I like the idea either of wolves nosing round our tents when we’re asleep at night! I’d feel much safer in a cave!”
They hunted about for some kind of rocky shelter or cave, but there seemed none to be found. The mountain was so steep that it was difficult to climb, and Lucy-Ann was afraid of slipping and falling.
Snowy leapt ahead of them, as sure-footed as ever. The boys wished heartily that it was as easy for them to leap about the mountain as it was for the kid.
“Look at him up there, standing on that rock!” said Jack, feeling exasperated and far too hot with his climbing. “Hey, Snowy, come and give us a leg up! If only we had four springy legs like yours!”
Snowy stood there, whisking his little tail, and then ran back and disappeared. “Where’s he gone?” said Jack, “Oh, there he comes again. Philip, there must be a cave or overhanging rock up where he is — he keeps going back and disappearing into it, whatever it is!”
They climbed up to where Snowy was, and sure enough, just at the back of the overhanging rock was a long low cave, its roof made out of another overhanging rock, its opening fringed with ferns of all kinds.
“This would do awfully well for us,” said Jack, going down on hands and knees and looking in. “We could light a fire on the rock outside — the one Snowy stood on — and feel quite safe tonight. Clever little Snowy! You found us just what we wanted!”
“But how in the world are we going to get everything up here?” said Philip. “It was such a climb. It’s not as if we are donkeys or goats, able to scramble up steep places quite easily, even with a load to carry. We need our hands to help us.”