WHEN THE BLOW FELL
A faint, cooling breath, wafted across the desert, fanned the
cheek of Hi Lang. He inhaled deeply of it, not once, but several
times.
"It is here!" he muttered, "I hope it may be a light one." Saying
which the guide rose and walked briskly to the ponies' tethering
ground. The animals were restive, they were stepping from side to
side and an occasional snort was heard, but they quieted down when
he went among them and spoke soothing words, petting an animal
here, restaking another one there until he had spoken to each
bronco in the outfit.
The guide's next move was to step to Hippy's tent and awaken him.
"What is it? Have the desert pirates returned?" questioned Hippy,
sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
"No! Something worse is coming. Do not awaken the young ladies
just yet. Come out I will show you a great sight."
Hippy sprang up and followed the guide. Hi paused by the embers of
the camp fire long enough to stamp them out.
"So they do not blow about and set our equipment on fire," he
explained.
"Where's the sight?" demanded the lieutenant.
"Look yonder!" directed Hi, pointing toward the western horizon.
The mist had disappeared from the sky like magic and the stars
once more shone out with all their former brilliancy. Off to the
westward, however, there were no stars to be seen. In their place,
stretched clear across the horizon, lay a cloud, black as ink.
"Watch the upper edge of the cloud," said the guide in a low tone.
"It is rolling like the surf," exclaimed Hippy.
"Yes, and in that cloud are tons upon tons of sand that the cloud
is carrying along with it. We'll lose a stretch of our desert here
in a few moments."
"Is there nothing that we can do to protect ourselves, Hi?"
"Not a thing. The equipment has been securely packed. I had Ping
put the rifles in a sack and stand them upright in a hole in the
ground so we may find them after the storm. Without weapons we
should be in a bad way, especially if our friends, the pirates,
return, but I reckon that what's left of that crowd will be pretty
well sanded. This storm is going to pile right up on the range
that we left behind us."
A distant, menacing roar now became audible to the two men, such a
roar as one can hear by placing an ear to the opening of a conch
shell, but magnified perhaps a million times.
The cool breeze, that had shortly before warned Hi Lang, now
became a chill blast, moderate, but plainly thrust ahead by a
mighty force behind it.
"Good night!" exclaimed Lieutenant Wingate. "That breeze must have
been born up in Iceland. Talk about your heat on the desert!
Perhaps we shall have some cool weather here after the storm
passes."
Hi Lang laughed.
"Don't fool yourself, Lieutenant. It will be hotter than ever to-
morrow, blistering, sizzling hot; and the water courses probably
will dive deeper into the earth and give us no end of trouble to
find them. I---"
"It is coming, isn't it?" questioned Graces who had been awakened
by the breeze and had come up behind Hippy and Mr. Lang without
their hearing her.
"It's well on the way, Mrs. Gray. Perhaps it might be well to
awaken the young ladies. Knock down your tents and sit on them or
you won't have any tents left. Reckon we'd better do the same,
Lieutenant."
It was plain that the storm soon would be upon them and all haste
was made to prepare for the blow. The tents were laid flat,
weighted with such equipment as might be expected to hold them
there, and the Overland Riders stood or crouched a little fearful
in this new mystery of the desert.
"Getting closer!" announced the guide.
"What shall we do?" asked Hippy.
"Lie down when you can no longer stand up, and take pot luck."
"Any orders, Mr. Lang?" called Grace Harlowe.
"Yes. Lie down facing the storm and wind your blankets about you.
Be sure to keep your heads covered. If you find that the sand is
piling up on your backs, shake it off."
"If you get buried perhaps you may find a tank down there,"
suggested Hippy, but no one laughed at his sally. "There goes that
crazy Chinaman again. I hope he chokes."
"He will if he keeps his mouth open much longer."
Ping had broken out in song, which the wind was not yet strong
enough to smother.
"Sometim' you look-see piece sand he walkee mountain high, Jist
t'hen wind knock top-side off an' blow 'um up to sky. Jist so my
heart walk up inside--befo' he sinkee down--"
That was the last heard of Ping Wing for some time, the concluding
words of his song having been lost in a burst of wind that drowned
out every other sound.
"Down! Everybody down!" yelled the guide just before the blast
struck them.
The sandstorm swooped down on them suddenly, bringing with it
black night, a roaring, booming, hideous thing. Sand rained on the
blankets, covering the girls of the Overland Riders, and now and
then some heavier object, they knew not what, struck one or more
of them, adding to the terror of the moment.
Emma Dean struggled and moaned in her fright. Her blanket,
loosened by her movements, was whisked into the air and out of
sight in a twinkling. She screamed for help, but no one heard her,
and Emma threw herself down in the sand, or was blown over when
she struggled to a sitting position. There she lay, her face
buried in the sand, sobbing and moaning.
Not a sound had been uttered by any of the other girls. They were
listening, listening, wondering how much longer they would be able
to endure the terrific strain under which they were laboring.
Such wind no person there, except Hi Lang, had ever dreamed could
be possible. Grace found herself wondering if the Arabian simoon,
of which she had read, could possibly be deadlier. She doubted it.
By now the girls were fighting to keep from being buried alive,
and in their choking, suffocating condition they tried to sit up
for air. All lost their blankets instantly. The sand beat on their
faces and heads like sharp-pointed tiny hailstones. Their eyes
were blinded by it, and their bodies burned as if they had been
rubbed with sandpaper, but there was nothing that could be done to
relieve their suffering because no person could stand up against
the mighty force of the wind.
The storm, it seemed to them, lasted for hours, though as a matter
of fact it had blown itself out within fifteen minutes from the
time it struck them.
"Backbone of the storm is broken," yelled the guide in Hippy's
ear, both being under the same blanket.
"So is mine," Hippy howled back. "There's a ton of sand, if there
is a pound on it, this very minute. Hope the girls are safe. Can
we get out?"
"No. The wind is too strong. It will die out in a few moments.
I'll go out the minute I can crawl."
The men waited several minutes, during which the gale was steadily
decreasing. The guide finally poked his head from under the
blanket, shading his eyes with a hand to keep the blowing sand
out, before opening them.
"Cover your eyes and come on," he said, crawling out and starting
to beat his way against the gale toward the spot where the
Overland girls were supposed to be.
They were huddled together, with their arms about each other to
keep from being blown away, every head resting on an arm as they
lay face down on the ground.
"Stand up, but protect your eyes," shouted Hi. "Gale's almost over
and done for."
"So--o--o are we," gasped Grace, staggering to her feet, and
almost instantly landing on her back on the ground where the wind
had hurled her.
Hi assisted her to her feet, Grace laughing and choking at the
same time. The others, in turn, were lifted up by Hi and Hippy,
all leaning against the wind, clinging to each other, and, with
handkerchiefs in their mouths, breathing what air they could get
in this way without taking in any more sand than they could help.
The wind stopped with a suddenness that left every one of the
party unprepared. The result was that they fell forward on their
faces, and for a few moments there was a mixup that, in ordinary
circumstances, would have brought merry peals of laughter, but
there was no laughter this time.
The eyes of the Overland Riders were so filled with sand that they
were too blinded to see the stars that once more were shining
"just above them."
"Wet your handkerchiefs with water from your canteens and wipe
your eyes," suggested Grace.
"Go easy on the water," commanded the guide. "Let's see where we
are at before we use water."
"You are right, sir. I had not thought of that," agreed Grace.
"Our buckets are full, aren't they?" questioned Anne.
"Yes--of sand," spoke up Elfreda.
"The first thing to do is to settle the water question. Ping!"
Ping Wing came running up, his white suit the color of the
landscape, for Ping had been rolled in the sand to his utter
undoing.
"Go see how many horses we have left."
"Me savvy. Tlee."
"Three? That is better than I hoped for," chuckled the guide.
"With three we can reasonably look forward to finding the others
somewhere on the desert, but we can't do much to improve our
situation until daylight. No use to search for our equipment
before then. I will look into the water question, however, right
now."
"This is the most violent landscape that it has ever been my
misfortune to gaze upon," declared Elfreda Briggs, tossing her
fallen hair up and down to shake the sand out of it, a proceeding
that was followed by each of the girls.
"At least we have one thing to be thankful for," observed Anne. "I
thank my stars that it is so dark that we cannot see how really
tough we do look."
"If I look as bad as I feel I must be a terrible sight," wailed
Emma. "Here comes Hi. Have we water?"
"Not a drop except what you have in your canteens. The water hole
is buried so deep that we have lost it. Guard every drop. We are
in a serious situation."