sheep and hiked!

"And I tell you, pardner," said the big cowman impressively, "after
thinkin' this matter over in the hot sun I've jest about decided to go
crazy myself. Yes, sir, the next time I hear a sheep-blat on Bronco
Mesa I'm goin' to tear my shirt gittin' to the high ground with a
thirty-thirty; and if any one should inquire you can tell 'em that
your pore friend's mind was deranged by cuttin' too many _palo
verdes_." He smiled, but there was a sinister glint in his eyes; and
as he rode home that night Hardy saw in the half-jesting words a
portent of the never-ending struggle that would spring up if God ever
sent the rain.

On the day after the visit to Carrizo a change came over the sky; a
haze that softened the edges of the hills rose up along the horizon,
and the dry wind died away. As Hardy climbed along the rocky bluffs
felling the giant _sahuaros_ down into the ravines for his cattle, the
sweat poured from his face in a stream. A sultry heaviness hung over
the land, and at night as he lay beneath the _ramada_ he saw the
lightning, hundreds of miles away, twinkling and playing along the
northern horizon. It was a sign--the promise of summer rain!

In the morning a soft wind came stealing in from the west; a white
cloud came up out of nothing and hovered against the breast of the
Peaks; and the summer heat grew terrible. At noon the cloud turned
black and mounted up, its fluffy summit gleaming in the light of the
ardent sun; the wind whirled across the barren mesa, sweeping great
clouds of dust before it, and the air grew damp and cool; then, as
evening came on the clouds vanished suddenly and the wind died down to
a calm. For a week the spectacle was repeated--then, at last, as if
weary, the storm-wind refused to blow; the thunder-caps no longer
piled up against the Peaks; only the haze endured, and the silent,
suffocating heat.

Day after day dragged by, and without thought or hope Hardy plodded
on, felling _sahuaros_ into the canyons, his brain whirling in the
fever of the great heat. Then one day as the sun rose higher a
gigantic mass of thunder-clouds leapt up in the north, covering half
the sky. The next morning they rose again, brilliant, metallic,
radiating heat like a cone of fire. The heavens were crowned with
sudden splendor, the gorgeous pageantry of summer clouds that rise
rank upon rank, basking like newborn cherubim in the glorious light
of the sun, climbing higher and higher until they