scend all these
activities, to travel on and over the different rights of way to which
all the rest of the world was confined until he knew them all and what
lay beyond them. The impulse was but momentary, and Bob laughed at
himself as it passed.

"Something hid beyond the ranges," he quoted softly to himself.

Suddenly he looked up, and gathered his reins.

"John," he said, "we're going to catch that storm."

"Surely," replied the old man looking at him with surprise; "just found
that out?"

"Well, we'd better hurry."

"What's the use? It'll catch us, anyhow. We're shore due to get wet."

"Well, let's hunt a good tree."

"No," said California John, "this is a thunder-storm, and trees is too
scurce. You just keep ridin' along the open road. I've noticed that
lightnin' don't hit twice in the same place mainly because the same
place don't seem to be thar any more after the first time."

The first big drops of the storm delayed fully five minutes. It did seem
foolish to be jogging peacefully along at a foxtrot while the tempest
gathered its power, but Bob realized the justice of his companion's
remarks.

When it did begin, however, it made up for lost time. The rain fell as
though it had been turned out of a bucket. In an instant every runnel
was full. The water even flowed in a thin sheet from the hard surface of
the ground. The men were soaked.

Then came the thunder in a burst of fury and noise. The lightning
flashed almost continuously, not only down, but aslant, and even--Bob
thought--_up_. The thunder roared and reverberated and reechoed until
the world was filled with its crashes. Bob's nerves were steady with
youth and natural courage, but the implacable rapidity with which
assault followed assault ended by shaking him into a sort of confusion.
His horse snorted, pricking its ears backward and forward, dancing from
side to side. The lightning seemed fairly to spring into being all
about them, from the substance of the murk in which they rode.

"Isn't this likely to hit us?" he yelled at California John.

"Liable to," came back the old man's reply across the roar of the
tempest.

Bob looked about him uneasily. The ranger bent his head to the wind.
Star, walking more rapidly, outpaced Bob's horse, until they were
proceeding single file some ten feet apart.

Suddenly the earth seemed to explode directly ahead. A blinding flare
swept the ground, a hissing crackle was drowned in an overwhelming roar