ast, rising above the distant hill, now
showed an ugly-looking cloud-bank which almost certainly portended a
storm of no ordinary dimensions.

Had it first appeared in the opposite quarter of the horizon, Bruno
would have felt a stronger interest in the clouds, knowing as he did
that the miscalled "cyclone" almost invariably finds birth in
the southwest. Then, too, nearly all the other symptoms were
noticeable,--the close, "muggy" atmosphere; the deathlike stillness; the
lack of oxygen in the air, causing one to breathe more rapidly, yet with
far less satisfying results than usual.

Even as Bruno gazed, those heavy cloud-banks changed, both in shape
and in colour, taking on a peculiar greenish lustre which only too
accurately forebodes hail of no ordinary force.

His cry to this effect brought the professor forth from the shed-like
shanty, while Waldo roused up sufficiently to speak:

"To say nothing of yonder formation way out over the salty drink, my
worthy friends, who intimated that a cyclone was born at sea?"

Professor Featherwit frowned a bit as his keen little rat-like eyes
turned towards that quarter of the heavens; but the frown was not for
Waldo, nor for his slightly irreverent speech.

Where but a few minutes before there had been only a few light clouds
in sight, was now a heavy bank of remarkable shape, its crest a straight
line as though marked by an enormous ruler, while the lower edge was
broken into sharp points and irregular sections, the whole seeming to
float upon a low sea of grayish copper.

"Well, well, that looks ugly, decidedly ugly, I must confess," the wiry
little professor spoke, after that keen scrutiny.

"Really, now?" drawled Waldo, who was nothing if not contrary on the
surface. "Barring a certain little topsy-turvyness which is something
out of the ordinary, I'd call that a charming bit of--Great guns and
little cannon-balls!"

For just then there came a shrieking blast of wind from out the
northeast, bringing upon its wings a brief shower of hail, intermingled
with great drops of rain which pelted all things with scarcely less
force than did those frozen particles.

"Hurrah!" shrilly screamed Waldo, as he dashed out into the storm,
fairly revelling in the sudden change. "Who says this isn't 'way up in
G?' Who says--out of the way, Bruno! Shut that trap-door in your face,
so another fellow may get at least a share of the good things coming
straight down from--ow--wow!"

Th