A wind sprang up, murmuring about them, there came a distant roll of thunder, while along the horizon the lightning rushed in broken, jagged lines of fire.

In the east there was a pale flush that showed the black, hurrying clouds the winds had summoned out of space.
The booming thunder, first only the sullen menace of the approaching storm, rolled nearer and nearer, and the fierce light came in blinding sheets of flame.

A ceaseless, pauseless murmur sprang up out of the distance, and the trees rocked with a mighty crashing of branches, while here and there a big drop of rain fell.

Then the murmur swelled into a roar as the low clouds disgorged themselves.

Drenched to the skin on the instant, the two men and the boy stumbled forward through the gray wake of the storm.
"What's come of our trail now ?" shouted the judge, but the sound of his voice was lost in the rush of the hurrying winds and the roar of the airy cascades that fell about them.
An hour passed.