Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/15

 THE EXPRESS MESSENGER

I

HE roar and rumble of distant thunder had been heard in the hills all the morning, and along about noon a big black cloud came creeping up over the crest of the continent and listed a little, when a peak of one of the hills caught the lower corner, ripped it open, and let the water out. It did n't rain; the water simply fell out of the cloud, and went rushing down the side of the mountain as it rushes off the roof of a house in a hard April shower.

The little fissures were filled first, then the gorges, gullies, and rough ravines, and when these emptied into the countless rills that ran away toward the foot of the range, every rill became a rushing river. Leaves and brush and fallen trees were borne away on the breast of