The Lost City | Page 2

frown was not for Waldo, nor for his slightly irreverent speech.
Where but a few minutes before there had been only a few light clouds in sight, was now a heavy bank of remarkable shape, its crest a straight line as though marked by an enormous ruler, while the lower edge was broken into sharp points and irregular sections, the whole seeming to float upon a low sea of grayish copper.
"Well, well, that looks ugly, decidedly ugly, I must confess," the wiry little professor spoke, after that keen scrutiny.
"Really, now?" drawled Waldo, who was nothing if not contrary on the surface. "Barring a certain little topsy-turvyness which is something out of the ordinary, I'd call that a charming bit of--Great guns and little cannon-balls!"
For just then there came a shrieking blast of wind from out the northeast, bringing upon its wings a brief shower of hail, intermingled with great drops of rain which pelted all things with scarcely less force than did those frozen particles.
"Hurrah!" shrilly screamed Waldo, as he dashed out into the storm, fairly revelling in the sudden change. "Who says this isn't 'way up in G?' Who says--out of the way, Bruno! Shut that trap-door in your face, so another fellow may get at least a share of the good things coming straight down from--ow--wow!"
Through the now driving rain came flashing larger particles, and one of more than ordinary size rebounded from that curly pate, sending its owner hurriedly to shelter beneath the scrubby trees, one hand ruefully rubbing the injured part.
Faster fell the drops, both of rain and of ice, clattering against the shanty and its adjoining shed with an uproar audible even above the sullenly rolling peals of heavy thunder.
The rain descended in perfect sheets for a few minutes, while the hailstones fell thicker and faster, growing in size as the storm raged, already beginning to lend those red sands a pearly tinge with their dancing particles. Now and then an aerial monster would fall, to draw a wondering cry from the brothers, and on more than one occasion Waldo risked a cracked crown by dashing forth from shelter to snatch up a remarkable specimen.
"Talk about your California fruit! what's the matter with good old Washington Territory?" he cried, tightly clenching one fist and holding a hailstone alongside by way of comparison. "Look at that, will you? Isn't it a beauty? See the different shaded rings of white and clear ice. See--brother, it is as large as my fist!"
But for once Professor Phaeton Featherwit was fairly deaf to the claims of this, in some respects his favourite nephew, having scuttled back beneath the shed, where he was busily stowing away sundry articles of importance into a queerly shaped machine which those rough planks fairly shielded from the driving storm.
Having performed this duty to his own satisfaction, the professor came back to where the brothers were standing, viewing with them such of the storm as could be itemised. That was but little, thanks to the driving rain, which cut one's vision short at but a few rods, while the deafening peals of thunder prevented any connected conversation during those first few minutes.
"Good thing we've got a shelter!" cried Waldo, involuntarily shrinking as the plank roof was hammered by several mammoth stones of ice. "One of those chunks of ice would crack a fellow's skull just as easy!"
Yet the next instant he was out in the driving storm, eagerly snatching at a brace of those frozen marvels, heedless of his own risk or of the warning shouts sent after him by those cooler-brained comrades.
Thunder crashed in wildest unison with almost blinding sheets of lightning, the rain and hail falling thicker and heavier than ever for a few moments; but then, as suddenly as it had come, the storm passed on, leaving but a few scattered drops to fetch up the rear.
"Isn't that pretty nearly what people call a cloudburst, uncle Phaeton?" asked Bruno, curiously watching that receding mass of what from their present standpoint looked like vapour.
"Those wholly ignorant of meteorological phenomena might so pronounce, perhaps, but never one who has given the matter either thought or study," promptly responded the professor, in no wise loth to give a free lecture, no matter how brief it might be, perforce. "It is merely nature seeking to restore a disturbed equilibrium; a current of colder air, in search of a temporary vacuum, caused by--"
"But isn't that just what produces cy--tornadoes, though?" interrupted Waldo, with scant politeness.
"Precisely, my dear boy," blandly agreed their mentor, rubbing his hands briskly, while peering through rain-dampened glasses, after that departing storm. "And I have scarcely a doubt but that a tornado of no ordinary magnitude will be the final outcome of this remarkable display. For, as the record will amply prove, the most destructive windstorms