Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/147

Rh The sudden change in her voice made Ruth giggle nervously. "That's somebody riding ahead of us. You're not afraid, Nita? '

"Well, I should say not!" cried the other, very boldly. "It's one of the boys. Hello, Darcy! I thought you were a ghost."

"You gals better git back to the camp," grunted the cowboy. "We're going to have a shower later. I feel it in the air."

"We're neither sugar nor salt," declared Jane Ann. "We've both got slickers on our saddles."

"Ridin' herd at night ain't no job for gals," said Darcy. "And that cloud yander is goin' ter spit lightnin'."

"He's always got a grouch about something. I never did like old Darcy," Jane Ann confided to her friend.

But there was a general movement and confusion in the herd before the girls had ridden two miles. The cattle smelled the storm coming and, now and then, a faint flash of lightning penciled the upper edge of the cloud that masked the Western horizon.

Tain't going to amount to anything," declared Jane Ann.

"It just looks like heat lightning," agreed Ruth.

"May not rain at all to-night," pursued the other girl, cheerfully.