“I say, professor?”
“Very well, Waldo; proceed.”
“Wonder if this isn't a portion of the glorious climate, broken loose from its native California, and drifting up this way on a lark?”
“If so, said lark must be roasted to a turn,” declared the third (and last) member of that little party, drawing a curved forefinger across his forehead, then flirting aside sundry drops of moisture. “I can't recall such another muggy afternoon, and if we were only back in what the scientists term the cyclone belt—”
“We would be all at sea,” quickly interposed the professor, the fingers of one hand vigorously stirring his gray pompadour, while the other was lifted in a deprecatory manner. “At sea, literally as well as metaphorically, my dear Bruno; for, correctly speaking, the ocean alone can give birth to the cyclone.”
“Why can't you remember anything, boy?” sternly cut in the roguish-eyed youngster, with admonitory forefinger, coming to the front. “How many times have I told you never to say blue when you mean green? Why don't you say Kansas zephyr? Or windy-auger? Or twister? Or whirly-gust on a corkscrew wiggle-waggle? Or—well, almost any other old thing that you can't think of at the right time? W-h-e-w! Who mentioned sitting on a snowdrift, and sucking at an icicle? Hot? Well, now, if this isn't a genuine old cyclone breeder, then I wouldn't ask a cent!”
Waldo Gillespie let his feet slip from beneath him, sitting down with greater force than grace, back supported against a gnarled juniper, loosening the clothes at his neck while using his other hand to ply his crumpled hat as a fan.
Bruno laughed outright at this characteristic anticlimax, while Professor Featherwit was obliged to smile, even while compelled to correct.
“Tornado, please, nephew; not cyclone.”
“Well, uncle Phaeton, have it your own way. Under either name, I fancy the thing-a-ma-jig would kick up a high old bobbery with a man's political economy should it chance to go bu'st right there! And, besides, when I was a weenty little fellow I was taught never to call a man a fool or a liar—”
“Waldo!” sharply warned his brother, turning again.
“So long as I knew myself to be in the wrong,” coolly finished the youngster, face grave, but eyes twinkling, as they turned towards his mistaken mentor. “What is it, my dear Bruno?”
“There is one thing neither cyclone nor tornado could ever deprive you of, Kid, and that is—”
“My beauty, wit, and good sense,—thanks, awfully! Nor you, my dear Bruno, although my inbred politeness forbids my explaining just why.”
There was a queer-sounding chuckle as Professor Featherwit turned away, busying himself about that rude-built shed and shanty which sheltered the pride of his brain and the pet of his heart, while Bruno smiled indulgently as he took a few steps away from those stunted trees in order to gain a fairer view of the stormy heavens.
Far away towards the northeast, rising above the distant hill, now showed an ugly-looking cloud-bank which almost certainly portended a storm of no ordinary dimensions.
Had it first appeared in the opposite quarter of the horizon, Bruno would have felt a stronger interest in the clouds, knowing as he did that the miscalled “cyclone” almost invariably finds birth in the southwest. Then, too, nearly all the other symptoms were noticeable,—the close, “muggy” atmosphere; the deathlike stillness; the lack of oxygen in the air, causing one to breathe more rapidly, yet with far less satisfying results than usual.
Even as Bruno gazed, those heavy cloud-banks changed, both in shape and in colour, taking on a peculiar greenish lustre which only too accurately forebodes hail of no ordinary force.
His cry to this effect brought the professor forth from the shed-like shanty, while Waldo roused up sufficiently to speak:
“To say nothing of yonder formation way out over the salty drink, my worthy friends, who intimated that a cyclone was born at sea?”
Professor Featherwit frowned a bit as his keen little rat-like eyes turned towards that quarter of the heavens; but the 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 are invariably heralded by a fall of hail, heavy in proportion to the—”
“Then I'd rather be excused, thank you, sir!” again interrupted the younger of the brothers, shrugging his shoulders as he stepped forth from shelter to win a fairer view of the space stretching away towards the south and the west. “I always laughed at tales of hailstones large as hen's eggs, but now I know better. If I was a hen, and had to match such a pattern as these, I'd petition the legislature to change my name to that of ostrich,—I just would, now!”
Bruno proved to be a little more amenable to the law of politeness, and to him Professor Featherwit confined his sapient remarks for the time being, giving no slight amount of valuable information anent these strange phenomena of nature in travail.
He spoke of the different varieties of land-storms, showing how a tornado varied from a hurricane or a gale, then again brought to the front the vital difference between a cyclone, as such, and the miscalled “twister,” which has wrought such dire destruction throughout a large portion of our own land during more recent years.
While that little lecture would make interesting reading for those who take an interest in such matters, it need scarcely be reproduced in this connection, more particularly as, just when the professor was getting fairly warmed up to his work, an interruption came in the shape of a sharp, eager shout from the lips of Waldo Gillespie.
“Look—look yonder! What a funny looking cloud that is!”
A small clump of trees growing upon a rising bit of ground interfered with the view of his brother and uncle, for Waldo was pointing almost due southeast; yet his excitement was so pronounced that both the professor and Bruno hastened in that direction, stopping short as they caught a fair sight of the object indicated.
A mighty mass of wildly disturbed clouds, black and green and white and yellow all blending together and constantly shifting positions, out of which was suddenly formed a still more ominous shape.
A mass of lurid vapour shot downwards, taking on the general semblance of a balloon, as it swayed madly back and forth, an elongating trunk or tongue reaching still nearer the earth, with fierce gyrations, as though seeking to fasten upon some support.
Not one of that trio had ever before gazed upon just such another creation, yet one and all recognised the truth,—this was a veritable tornado, just such as they had read in awed wonder about, time and time again.
Neither one of the brothers Gillespie were cravens, in any sense of the word, but now their cheeks grew paler, and they seemed to shrink from yonder airy monster, even while watching it grow into shape and awful power.
Professor Featherwit was no less absorbed in this wondrous spectacle, but his was the interest of a scientist, and his pulse beat as ordinary, his brain remaining as clear and calm as ever.
“I hardly believe we have anything to fear from this tornado, my lads,” he said, taking note of their uneasiness. “According to both rule and precedent, yonder tornado will pass to the east of our present position, and we will be as safe right here as though we were a thousand miles away.”
“But,—do they always move towards the northeast, uncle Phaeton?”
“As a rule, yes; but there are exceptions, of course. And unless this should prove to be one of those rare ex—er—”
“Look!” cried Waldo, with swift gesticulation. “It's coming this way, or I never—ISN'T it coming this way?”
“Unless this should prove to be one of those rare exceptions, my dear boy, I can promise you that—Upon my soul!” with an abrupt change of both tone and manner, “I really believe it IS coming this way!”
“It is—it is coming! Get a move on, or we'll never know—hunt a hole and pull it in after you!” fairly screamed Waldo, turning in flight.
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