We Sat Upon Our Saddles
With Faces Of The Utmost Surliness, While The Water Dropped From The
Vizors Of Our Caps, And Trickled Down Our Cheeks.
My india-rubber
cloak conducted twenty little rapid streamlets to the ground; and
Shaw's blanket-coat was saturated like a sponge.
But what most
concerned us was the sight of several puddles of water rapidly
accumulating; one in particular, that was gathering around the tent-
pole, threatened to overspread the whole area within the tent,
holding forth but an indifferent promise of a comfortable night's
rest. Toward sunset, however, the storm ceased as suddenly as it
began. A bright streak of clear red sky appeared above the western
verge of the prairie, the horizontal rays of the sinking sun streamed
through it and glittered in a thousand prismatic colors upon the
dripping groves and the prostrate grass. The pools in the tent
dwindled and sunk into the saturated soil.
But all our hopes were delusive. Scarcely had night set in, when the
tumult broke forth anew. The thunder here is not like the tame
thunder of the Atlantic coast. Bursting with a terrific crash
directly above our heads, it roared over the boundless waste of
prairie, seeming to roll around the whole circle of the firmament
with a peculiar and awful reverberation. The lightning flashed all
night, playing with its livid glare upon the neighboring trees,
revealing the vast expanse of the plain, and then leaving us shut in
as by a palpable wall of darkness.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 53 of 486
Words from 13821 to 14072
of 129303
