Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/49



OR a week the daisy-starred upland meadows al had danced and glittered in sunlight much to warm for June. Then, in the early afternoon of the seventh day, a great storm broke about the craggy summit of Devilhead and for three hours or more the cannon of the clouds rumbled and roared amid the peaks. Young Dan Alexander, watching the spectacle from the deep valley under Devilhead, talked to himself, as was his habit.

"Cloud King and Red Rogue," he muttered, "you're gettin' some music now; an' up where you are that thunder's ten times as loud. I wonder how you like it."

They liked it little, because all this tumult of the elements was a departure from the normal course of things and interfered seriously with the necessary business of life. Yet neither Cloud King, the peregrine falcon, nor Red Rogue, the fox, who had their homes on Devilhead within twenty yards of each other, was frightened by the storm. They knew what it was, having experienced many storms in their time, and they took it calmly enough. 35