The sound preceded the storm by some little time, but each moment the roar and the crash of it grew louder and when it finally reached them Wallie gazed open-mouthed.
Accustomed to hail like tapioca, he never had seen anything like the big, jagged chunks of ice which struck the ground with such force that they bounded into the air again. Any one of them would have knocked a man unconscious. It seemed as if they would batter his roof in, and they came so thick that the stable and corral could be seen only indistinctly.
They both stood in the doorway, fascinated and awe-stricken.
"Hear it pound! This is the worst I've seen anywhur. You're licked, Gentle Annie."
"Yes," said Wallie with a white face. "This finishes me."
"You'll have to kiss your wheat good-bye. It'll be beat into the ground too hard ever to straighten." He laid an arm about Wallie's shoulder and there was a sympathy in his voice few had heard there:
"You've put up a good fight, old pardner, and even if you are counted out, it's no shame to you. You've done good fer a Scissor-bill, Gentle Annie."
Wallie clenched his hands and shook himself free of Pinkey's arm while his tense voice rang out above the clatter and crash of the storm:
"I'm not licked! I won't be licked! I'm going to stick, somehow! And what's more," he turned to Pinkey fiercely, "if you don't stop calling me 'Gentle Annie,' I'll knock your block off!"
Pinkey looked at him with his pale, humorous eyes and beamed approvingly.