For an hour they traveled through
the drenching rain, their eyes blinded every minute by lightning; for an
hour they expected continually that the next thunder-bolt would smite
them. All round them, on that treeless prairie, the lightning seemed to
fall, and with every new blaze they held their breath for fear of sudden
death. Charlton wrapped Katy in every way he could, but still the storm
penetrated all the wrapping, and the cold rain chilled them both to the
core. Katy, on her part, was frightened, lest the lightning should strike
Brother Albert. Muffled in shawls, she felt tolerably safe from a
thunderbolt, but it was awful to think that Brother Albert sat out there,
exposed to the lightning. And in this time of trouble and danger,
Charlton held fast to his sister. He felt a brave determination never to
suffer Smith Westcott to have her. And if he had only lived in the middle
ages, he would doubtless have challenged the fellow to mortal combat.
Now, alas! civilization was in his way.

At last the storm spent itself a little, and the clouds broke away in
the west, lighting up the rain and making it glorious. Then the wind
veered, and the clouds seemed to close over them again, and the
lightning, not quite so vivid or so frequent but still terrible, and
the rain, with an incessant plashing, set in as for the whole night.
Darkness was upon them, not a house was in sight, the chill cold of
the ceaseless rain seemed beyond endurance, the horse was well-nigh
exhausted and walked at a dull pace, while Albert feared that Katy
would die from the exposure. As they came to the top of each little
rise he strained his eyes, and Katy rose up and strained her eyes, in
the vain hope of seeing a light, but they did not know that they were
in the midst of--that they were indeed driving diagonally across--a
great tract of land which had come into the hands of some corporation
by means of the location of half-breed scrip. They had long since
given up all hope of the hospitable welcome at the house of Cousin
John, and now wished for nothing but shelter of any sort. Albert knew
that he was lost, but this entire absence of settlers' houses, and
even of deserted claim-shanties built for pre-emption purposes,
puzzled him. Sometimes he thought he saw a house ahead, and endeavored
to quicken the pace of the old horse, but the house always transformed
itself to a clump of hazel-brush as he drew nearer. About nine o'clock
the rain grew colder