Memories 



about as if for danger, and then vanished down the 

 several game-trails. Not till they were gone did 

 I notice that the air was ominously still, or under- 

 stand the cause of the alarm: a tempest was 

 coming, and the sensitive animals were away to 

 cover before my dull senses had picked up the 

 first warning sign. Soon the landscape dark- 

 ened ; the face of my pond became as I had never 

 seen it before; thunder growled in the distance; 

 coppery clouds with light flaming through them 

 came rolling over the tree-tops; and all nature 

 said, as plainly as a fire-bell, "Get to cover, and 

 quickly!" 



As I went back into the woods, seeking shelter, 

 a few big drops hit the leaves like flails; then came 

 a pause, still as death, and then the deluge. 

 Ahead in the gloom I spied a young fir (never 

 pick a tall tree, or a solitary tree, in a tempest 

 of lightning) which thrust out a mass of feathery 

 branches from a thicket of its fellows. "This for 

 mine," I said as I dived under it, accompanied by 

 a blinding flare of light and an ear-splitting crack 

 and almost ran against the heels of a buck that 

 jumped out on the other side. By an odd chance, 

 one in ten thousand, he had picked the same fir 

 for shelter, and was no doubt thinking he had 

 picked well when I came blundering in with the 

 thunderbolt and drove him out into the downpour. 



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