horse bounded across the platform, slid and stumbled down the
other side, and was up again, leaping forward, and a little to the
left, where there was firmer going over another field of stones. And
now at length, to Haig's relief, the trail bent sharply in toward the
middle of the plateau, and thus away from the peril of the chasms.

But his elation was short-lived. If Thunder Mountain had admitted him
between the Twin Sisters, and spared him at the Devil's Chair, it was
only to hurl upon him its accumulated fury farther on. Engrossed in
the endless difficulties of the trail, he had not observed the
stealthy and insidious change that was taking place in the atmosphere
until it had advanced far toward its climax. The un-looked for calm,
so opportune, was but a pause before an outburst of elemental rage.
The vapors lifted, and hung in still masses a few feet above the
earth. Haig picked his way along in a strange, weird, yellowish light,
in a stillness that was all the more impressive by contrast with the
recent howling and hammering of the wind. There was not a faintest
puff of air on his cheek, and not a sound except the click of Trixy's
feet among the stones, and his own hurried breathing. All else seemed
to have paused, expectant, waiting.

It did not come as storms come in the valley, or on the plain, or
among the hills; not even as they come in the mountains. It did not
come from north, or east, or west, or south, or from any known
horizon; it had no sensible direction; it was there. Out of the
portentous hush (not into it) there came first a whisper, something
low and malevolent; then a singular moaning sound, incomparably dismal
and hollow and pervasive. Haig moved his head from side to side,
endeavoring to trace it--before, behind, above--he knew not where. The
moaning murmur grew, and still there was no perceptible movement in
the air; it rose whining up, up, up the scale until at last it was a
shrill, demoniacal shriek. And then, out of the darkening mists, it
leaped upon him.

In this whirling, wicked, wondrous thing there was no orderly and
recognizable succession of phenomena, such as wind and lightning and
rain. These came all in one swoop, all in one frightful blend. It was
black, and it was bright. The lightning came not from the sky,
discharging its bolts to earth; it was on the very surface of the
plateau. It flamed and crackled on uplifted rocks; it ran hissing like
fiery serpents among the scattere