there was a dense, dark
cloud overspreading the sky to the southward. The air was oppressively
still and hot.

"What can it be?" inquired Dick, looking at Joe, who was gazing with
an expression of wonder, not unmixed with concern, at the southern
sky.

"Dun'no', boy. I've bin more in the woods than in the clearin' in my
day, but I niver heerd the likes o' that."

"It am like t'ondre," said Henri; "mais it nevair do stop."

This was true. The sound was similar to continuous, uninterrupted
thunder. On it came with a magnificent roar that shook the very earth,
and revealed itself at last in the shape of a mighty whirlwind. In a
moment the distant woods bent before it, and fell like grass before
the scythe. It was a whirling hurricane, accompanied by a deluge of
rain such as none of the party had ever before witnessed. Steadily,
fiercely, irresistibly it bore down upon them, while the crash of
falling, snapping, and uprooting trees mingled with the dire artillery
of that sweeping storm like the musketry on a battle-field.

"Follow me, lads!" shouted Joe, turning his horse and dashing at full
speed towards a rocky eminence that offered shelter. But shelter
was not needed. The storm was clearly defined. Its limits were
as distinctly marked by its Creator as if it had been a living
intelligence sent forth to put a belt of desolation round the world;
and, although the edge of devastation was not five hundred yards from
the rock behind which the hunters were stationed, only a few drops of
ice-cold rain fell upon them.

It passed directly between the Camanchee Indians and their intended
victims, placing between them a barrier which it would have taken days
to cut through. The storm blew for an hour, then it travelled onward
in its might, and was lost in the distance. Whence it came and whither
it went none could tell, but far as the eye could see on either hand
an avenue a quarter of a mile wide was cut through the forest. It had
levelled everything with the dust; the very grass was beaten flat; the
trees were torn, shivered, snapped across, and crushed; and the earth
itself in many places was ploughed up and furrowed with deep scars.
The chaos was indescribable, and it is probable that centuries will
not quite obliterate the work of that single hour.

While it lasted, Joe and his comrades remained speechless and
awe-stricken. When it passed, no Indians were to be seen. So our
hunters remounted their steeds, and, wi