Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/119

 the rocks around her. Even Flash shrank from the terrific reports that hurt his sensitive ear drums and he burrowed his head into the folds of her walking skirt to protect them. She read this move as one of fear and it added to her own misgivings.

She felt no active fear of the lightning itself, but it shattered the control of overwrought nerves, and she buried her face in the dog’s fur and sobbed wildly.

Flash was strangely affected by her grief. His own plastic nature, subject to all outside impressions, responded to her emotion and his soul was wrung with misery.

For a time he whimpered in sympathy, but this mood was soon superseded by a desire to comfort her. He drew away and regarded her anxiously, then pawed at the arms which shielded her face. He confronted this, his first experience with a woman in tears, as helplessly as most men face a similar situation.

He wanted to help her—to fight for her, but he could not fight this intangible enemy. He snarled savagely at imaginary foes, clashing his teeth in vicious snaps. If the girl had not soon quieted he would have dashed away in a frenzy to kill the first living thing he met.