IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 89 



teries now fast approaching. By nine o'clock little 

 puffs of wind began to steal through the woods and 

 tease and toy with our fire. Shortly after, an enor- 

 mous electric bomhshell exploded in the treetops 

 over our heads, and the ball was fairly opened. 

 Then followed three hours, with only two brief in- 

 termissions, of as lively elemental music and as co- 

 pious an outpouring of rain as it was ever my lot to 

 witness. It was a regular meteorological carnival, 

 and the revelers were drunk with the wild sport. 

 The apparent nearness of the clouds and the electric 

 explosion was something remarkable. Every dis- 

 charge seemed to be in the branches immediately 

 overhead and made us involuntarily cower, as if 

 the next moment the great limbs of the trees, or the 

 trees themselves, would come crashing down. The 

 mountain upon which we were encamped appeared to 

 be the focus of three distinct but converging storms. 

 The last two seemed to come into collision immedi- 

 ately over our camp-fire, and to contend for the right 

 of way, until the heavens were ready to fall and both 

 antagonists were literally spent. We stood in groups 

 about the struggling fire, and when the cannonade 

 became too terrible would withdraw into the cover 

 of the darkness, as if to be a less conspicuous mark 

 for the bolts; or did we fear the fire, with its cur- 

 rents, might attract the lightning? At any rate, 

 some other spot than the one where we happened to 

 be standing seemed desirable when those onsets of the 

 contending elements were the most furious. Some- 

 thing that one could not catch in his hat was liable 



