t defense against such a cataract. The
rain could not enter bodily, but it beat through the canvas in a fine
drizzle, that wetted us just as effectively. We sat upon our saddles
with faces of the utmost surliness, while the water dropped from the
vizors of our caps, and trickled down our cheeks. My india-rubber cloak
conducted twenty little rapid streamlets to the ground; and Shaw's
blanket-coat was saturated like a sponge. But what most concerned us
was the sight of several puddles of water rapidly accumulating; one
in particular, that was gathering around the tent-pole, threatened
to overspread the whole area within the tent, holding forth but an
indifferent promise of a comfortable night's rest. Toward sunset,
however, the storm ceased as suddenly as it began. A bright streak
of clear red sky appeared above the western verge of the prairie, the
horizontal rays of the sinking sun streamed through it and glittered in
a thousand prismatic colors upon the dripping groves and the prostrate
grass. The pools in the tent dwindled and sunk into the saturated soil.

But all our hopes were delusive. Scarcely had night set in, when the
tumult broke forth anew. The thunder here is not like the tame thunder
of the Atlantic coast. Bursting with a terrific crash directly above our
heads, it roared over the boundless waste of prairie, seeming to roll
around the whole circle of the firmament with a peculiar and awful
reverberation. The lightning flashed all night, playing with its livid
glare upon the neighboring trees, revealing the vast expanse of the
plain, and then leaving us shut in as by a palpable wall of darkness.

It did not disturb us much. Now and then a peal awakened us, and made us
conscious of the electric battle that was raging, and of the floods that
dashed upon the stanch canvas over our heads. We lay upon india-rubber
cloths, placed between our blankets and the soil. For a while they
excluded the water to admiration; but when at length it accumulated and
began to run over the edges, they served equally well to retain it, so
that toward the end of the night we were unconsciously reposing in small
pools of rain.

On finally awaking in the morning the prospect was not a cheerful one.
The rain no longer poured in torrents; but it pattered with a quiet
pertinacity upon the strained and saturated canvas. We disengaged
ourselves from our blankets, every fiber of which glistened with little
beadlike drops of water, and loo