MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS 207 



yet the sun had disappeared, and the air, so 

 thick with wings, was thickening now with fog 

 that again was rolling in from seaward, blotting 

 out the skyline and shutting darkly down about 

 the gray, wild rocks. 



The men packed their cameras, and, slipping 

 into their coats, crept to shelter behind the peak, 

 for a wind had come up with the fog, a raw, rak- 

 ing wind that drove the gulls careening far to 

 leeward of the summit and forced them close to 

 the sea for a landing. 



The captain had warned us that a storm from 

 this quarter might continue for a week, and it 

 did look as if the whole wide Pacific were bear- 

 ing down upon us. The fog soon changed to a 

 drizzle, and this in turn to a driving slant, that 

 forced me to crawl from point to point about the 

 peak. 



It was not a pleasant prospect for the night. 

 Besides, it would be quite impossible either to 

 see or to hear the petrels' return in the pitch dark 

 that was falling, and in the wind that was already 

 drowning the lesser sounds — the screaming birds 

 overhead, the wash of the waves, and the hollow 

 boom of the caverns from below. No one could 



