is," Pinkey commented, "but jest the
same them clouds look like they meant business."

Wallie felt a glimmer of hope in spite of himself and he scrutinized the
clouds closely.

"They do look black," he admitted. "But since it hasn't rained for two
months it seems too much to expect that it will rain when I need it so
desperately."

"It's liable to do anything. I've seen it snow here in August. A
fur-lined linen duster is the only coat fer this country. I'll gamble
it's goin' to do _somethin'_, but only the Big Boss knows what."

During breakfast they got up at intervals to look through the doorway,
and while they washed dishes and tidied the cabin they watched the
northwest anxiously.

"She's movin' right along," Pinkey reported. "It might be a stiddy rain,
and then agin it might be a thunder-shower, though you don't often look
for 'em in the morning."

The light grew subdued with the approaching storm and Wallie commented
upon the coolness. Then he went out in the dooryard and stood a moment.

"The clouds are black as ink, and how still it is," he said,
wonderingly. "There isn't a breath of air stirring."

Pinkey was sitting on the floor oiling his saddle when he tilted his
head suddenly, and listened. He got up abruptly and stood in the
doorway, concentrating all his faculties upon some sound of which he
alone was cognizant, for Wallie was aware of nothing unusual save the
uncanny stillness.

"Hear that?" The sharp note in Pinkey's voice filled Wallie with a
nameless fear.

"No--what?"

"That roar--can't you hear it?"

Wallie listened intently.

"Yes--like a crashing--what is it?"

"Hail! And a terror! We've got to run the stock in." He was off with
Wallie following and together they got the cow and horses under shelter
with all the haste possible.

The sound preceded the storm by some little time, but each moment the
roar and the crash of it grew louder and when it finally reached them
Wallie gazed open-mouthed.

Accustomed to hail like tapioca, he never had seen anything like the
big, jagged chunks of ice which struck the ground with such force that
they bounded into the air again. Any one of them would have knocked a
man unconscious. It seemed as if they would batter his roof in, and they
came so thick that the stable and corral could be seen only
indistinctly.

They both stood in the doorway, fascinated and awe-stricken.

"Hear it pound! This is the worst I've seen anywhur. You're licked,