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"I'm no 'sharp' but it looks to ood wettin'"

Wallie said gri in Philadelphia was a rain- apparatus"

"On the level," Pinkey declared, earnestly, "I bleeve we're goin' to have a shower--the clouds bankin' up over there in the northwest is what h was cynical

"It ht drown somebody half a mile from me but it wouldn't settle the dust in ittin' homesteaditis," Pinkey commented, "but jest the same thelimmer 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 ga Boss knohat"

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 ht be a stiddy rain, and then agin it h you don't often look for 'erew 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 sonizant, for Wallie are 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 sorew louder and when it finally reached theazed open-mouthed

Accusto 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