Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/211

 out of the fray with broken limbs and not a few headless. Near the house one broke partly off, lodging against its neighbor. Swaying back and forth in the gale, they made a most hideous, rasping, screeching sound, like the screaming of caged beasts in a menagerie. Tom said those trees would be a treasure for a “shivaree” party,—that a resined scantling drawn across a pine box was but an æolian harp in comparison.

In daylight, when one could see what was going on, it wasn’t so bad; but at night it was something fearful. There was no light of moon or stars; only darkness and the rush and roar of wind and water, the lashing and swish-swashing of firs, with an accompaniment of shrieks from the crippled one and his fellow-sufferer.

Though rather frightened at times, I liked the excitement and exhilaration of all this, and I think Tom and Bert did—if they would admit it. The effort to save buildings, fences, bridges, etc., stirred their blood, and gave them something new to think and talk about.

The uneventful days preceding this stormy period were far worse to bear. During ten weeks I never exchanged a word with a neighbor woman, nor even saw one pass; and I saw only three men, all horsemen. The first—a smooth, round-faced, large man, wearing a plaid shawl—was so motherly-looking that we set him down as a country doctor. The second rider, gaunt and thin, with a stuffed gunny-sack for a saddle, had a bag of flour lying across his steed; we concluded hunger