The Dual Alliance Part 13

"Probably not."

As the day wore on and they went higher with each mile, clouds began to gather, and thunder rumbled far away, then nearer.

"Goin' to git a storm," said Bill.

"Good! That's the one big thing we haven't had in the way of experience," Bob answered.

"Yer goin' to git it."

"How far are we from shelter, Bill?" Trent asked.

"There's a loggin' shack 'bout five miles up. We'd better jog along and git to it, fer when this here thing busts it's goin' to rip snort."

They pushed the ponies into a trot on all the level spots, and they scrambled up the steep grades, as if they, too, sensed danger. The clouds grew blacker and blacker.

"Those clouds bubble out of a huge cauldron," Bob said. Lightning began to crack across the sky, like fiery lashes of a whip. Bob reined up to watch.

"Come on, Bob, hurry!" ordered Trent. "This is no stage storm, it's the real thing."

The wind began to rise in intermittent gusts at first, then steadier, stronger, as if loosed from all restraint. The aspen trees and the ash bent to the earth in graceful salutations which fascinated Bob. A big tree trunk snapped somewhere, and they heard it fall with a noise like a groan.

"Hurry up, folks, it's after us!" shouted Bill.

Barbara answered with a shout of excitement and pleasure. They put their ponies to the run, sparing them neither for climb nor descent. The mountains seemed to rock about them; the noise of wind and thunder made speech impossible, little whirlwinds of dust and loose earth and stones enveloped them. Down below the valley was a black abyss.

They sighted the shack and made a last frantic scramble for it. As Bill kicked in the door of the cabin the last full fury broke. Trent lifted Barbara off her pony and ran into the house with her. Then the two men tried to shut the door.

"No, no, let it be open! It's wonderful to be a part of it!" cried the girl. She tried to stand in the door, but the wind whirled her aside as if she were a leaf. At her beckoning Paul stood beside her, holding her upright. It was like a war of worlds they looked upon.

"Will the shack stand, Bill?" Paul called to him.

"Can't say. Not if this wind keeps up."

Crash and crack and hurricane of wind. Mountains blurred by distant rain, mountains streaked by lightning flashes. Then came the downpour: the rain deluged, it leapt out of the sky and pierced the earth like javelins. The men got the door closed, and tried to fit an old wash-pan into the window to keep out the torrent. Barbara watched them, so excited she could scarcely contain herself. She would have gone out into it, if they could be induced to let her. Finally the shack was as waterproof as they could make it, with every available thing stuffed round the cracks and the edges.

Bill lit a candle, and Bob sat on the bunk, her feet drawn up under her.

It was the one dry spot. They ate crackers and cheese and sardines for supper, with no chance to make a fire.

"It seems trivial to eat, when all that wonder is happening out there,"

she protested.

"Might as well eat as anything. Can't do nuthin' else," said Bill.

"Pesky shame we can't make no coffee."

"But look what _that's_ making, Bill!" she cried.

"Makin' a pesky lot of noise," he grumbled.

"The superman," jeered Paul.

Little by little the artillery diminished.

"He's calling them off--the G.o.d of war. What's his name?" she said.

"Thor. Weren't you frightened?" he asked curiously.

"No. It was worth all the dull days I've ever spent. I know how to go out now, Paul, if the time comes: up here, in glorious destruction!"

"You queer, uncanny Celt," said he.

Later they opened the door and ventured out. The earth was blotted out in blackness, as of the void before G.o.d spoke. They made for a rock a few feet from the cabin, and stood peering off into opaque nothingness.

Barbara felt for Paul's hand and clung to it. They stood so for a s.p.a.ce of time, silent.

"I'm ready now to go back down. There's nothing more to learn up here. I know His peace and His wrath," she said at last.

"Life seems simpler, somehow--and greater, much greater," he answered her.

II

Monday found them back in New York. As they drove from the station to the hotel they watched the pa.s.sing panorama in silence.

"It seems a little dwarfed, doesn't it?" Barbara said.

"Yes. New York needs an occasional dose of absence, to keep the perspective true," he answered.

They looked about the hotel living-room with a sense of its strangeness.

The maid had everything in order, even to flowers everywhere.

"I can't seem to remember why we clutter up with so many luxuries,"

Barbara sighed.

"Are you a little sorry that you slit the envelope?" he teased her.

"No. Are you sorry I did it?"

"I had more to leave behind than you did."

She looked her surprise.

"I left the best playmate I ever had, up there in the hills."

"You mean Bill?" impudently.

"I mean the 'little feller'."

"You must ask him to visit you."