which
puzzled Bailey quite as much as her submission.

They worked silently and swiftly, getting the barrels of pork and oil
and flour into the store, and by the time they had emptied the wagon the
room was dark, so dark that the white face of the awed woman could be
seen only as a blotch of gray against the shadow.

They lighted the oil lamps, which hung in brackets on the wall, and then
Rivers said to Blanche: "Won't you go into the other room? We must stay
here and look after the goods."

"No, no! I'd rather be here with you; it's going to be terrible."

"Hark!" said Bailey, with lifted hands; "there she comes!"

Far away was heard a continuous, steady, low-keyed, advancing hum, like
the rushing of wild horses, their hoofbeats lost in one mighty,
throbbing, tumultuous roar; then a deeper darkness fell upon the scene,
and swift as the swoop of an eagle the tornado was upon them.

The advancing wall of rain struck the building with terrific force. The
lightning broke forth, savage as the roar of siege-guns. The noise of
the wind and thunder was deafening. The plain grew black as night, save
when the lightning flamed in countless streams across the clouds. The
cabin shook like a frightened hound. Bailey looked around.

"We must move the goods!" he shouted above the tumult. "See, the rain is
beating in!"

Rivers, with Blanche encircled by his arm, pressed her to his side
reassuringly. "Don't be afraid. It can't blow down," he repeated.

He then leaped to Bailey's assistance, and, while the thunder crashed in
their ears and the lightning blinded their eyes, they worked like
frantic insects to move the goods away from the western wall, through
which the rain was beating. There was a pleasure in this assault which
the woman could not share. It was battle, absorbing and exalting. Their
shouts were full of joyous excitement.

Once, when the structure trembled and groaned with the shock of a
frightful blast, Rivers again put his arm around Blanche, saying: "It
can't blow over. See those heavy barrels? If this store blows down,
there won't be a shanty standing in the county."

She pushed to the window to get a glimpse of the sod when the lightning
flamed. She imagined the plain as it would look with every cabin
flattened to earth, its inmates scattered, unhoused in the scant,
water-weighted grass.

As they all stood staring out, Rivers pointed and shouted to Bailey,
"See that flag-pole!"

It was made of hard pin