"Oh, let him go on--don't mind him," said Estelle. "Let's desert him; I
guess that will make him sorry."
Upon the word they all withdrew, and Rivers smiled. "Good riddance,"
said he.
Miss Baker presently opened the door, and, shaking a letter, said,
"Don't you wish you knew?"
He pretended to hurl a biscuit at her, and she shut the door with a
shriek of laughter.
Mrs. Burke slipped in. Her voice was low and timid, her face sombre.
"I cooked the supper, Jim."
"You did? Well, it's good. The biscuits are delicious." He looked at her
as only a husband should look--intimate, unwaveringly, secure. "You're
looking fine!"
She flushed with pleasure. As she passed him with the tea, he put his
arm about her waist.
"Be careful, Jim," she said, gently, and with a revealing, familiar, sad
cadence in her voice.
He smiled at her boyishly. He was beautiful to her in this mood. "I was
hoping you'd come over and stew something up for me. Hello, there's the
thunder! It's going to rain!"
Another sudden boom, like a cannon-shot, silenced the noise inside for
an instant, and then a sudden movement took place, the movement of feet
passing hurriedly about, and at last only one or two persons could be
heard. When Rivers re-entered the store Bailey was alone, standing in
the door, intently watching the coming storm. It was growing dusk on the
plain, and the lightning was beginning to play rapidly, low down toward
the horizon.
"We're in for it!" Bailey remarked, very quietly. "Cyclone!"
"Think so?" said Rivers, carelessly.
"Sure of it, Jim. That cloud's too wide in the wings to miss us this
time."
A peculiar, branching flash of lightning lay along the sky, like a vast
elm-tree, followed by a crashing roar.
Blanche cried out in alarm.
"Now, don't be scared. It's only a shower and will soon be over," said
Bailey. "Here's a letter for you."
She took the letter and read it hastily, looking often at the coming
storm. She seemed pale and distraught.
"Do you s'pose I've got time to get home now?" she asked, as she
finished reading.
"No," said Rivers, so decidedly that Bailey looked up in surprise.
"Can't you take me home?"
Rivers looked out of the door. "By the time we get this wagon unloaded
and the team hitched up, the storm will be upon us. No. I guess you're
safest right here."
There was a peculiar tone, a note of authority, in his voice which
puzzled Bailey quite as much as her submission.
They worked silently and swiftly, getting the barrels of pork and oil
and flour into the store, and by the time they had emptied the wagon the
room was dark, so dark that the white face of the awed woman could be
seen only as a blotch of gray against the shadow.
They lighted the oil lamps, which hung in brackets on the wall, and then
Rivers said to Blanche: "Won't you go into the other room? We must stay
here and look after the goods."
"No, no! I'd rather be here with you; it's going to be terrible."
"Hark!" said Bailey, with lifted hands; "there she comes!"
Far away was heard a continuous, steady, low-keyed, advancing hum, like
the rushing of wild horses, their hoofbeats lost in one mighty,
throbbing, tumultuous roar; then a deeper darkness fell upon the scene,
and swift as the swoop of an eagle the tornado was upon them.
The advancing wall of rain struck the building with terrific force. The
lightning broke forth, savage as the roar of siege-guns. The noise of
the wind and thunder was deafening. The plain grew black as night, save
when the lightning flamed in countless streams across the clouds. The
cabin shook like a frightened hound. Bailey looked around.
"We must move the goods!" he shouted above the tumult. "See, the rain is
beating in!"
Rivers, with Blanche encircled by his arm, pressed her to his side
reassuringly. "Don't be afraid. It can't blow down," he repeated.
He then leaped to Bailey's assistance, and, while the thunder crashed in
their ears and the lightning blinded their eyes, they worked like
frantic insects to move the goods away from the western wall, through
which the rain was beating. There was a pleasure in this assault which
the woman could not share. It was battle, absorbing and exalting. Their
shouts were full of joyous excitement.
Once, when the structure trembled and groaned with the shock of a
frightful blast, Rivers again put his arm around Blanche, saying: "It
can't blow over. See those heavy barrels? If this store blows down,
there won't be a shanty standing in the county."
She pushed to the window to get a glimpse of the sod when the lightning
flamed. She imagined the plain as it would look with every cabin
flattened to earth, its inmates scattered, unhoused in the scant,
water-weighted grass.
As they all stood staring out, Rivers pointed and shouted to Bailey,
"See that flag-pole!"
It was made of hard pine, tough and supple, but it bent in the force of
the wind like a willow twig. Again and again it bowed, rose with a
fling, only to be borne down again. At last it broke with a crash; the
upper half, whirling down, struck the roof, opening a ragged hole
through which the rain streamed in torrents.