Just then great sheets of opal-colored mists began to drift toward the earth from the holes in the clouds and Cho-gay felt wet drops on his face. A little gray hawk, flying from below, began to sing in a high excited voice. As his words came to them more and more clearly the very air seemed to echo the music and all Timbertangle seemed to be singing:
“Oh, brown the earth and gray the sky,
And desert and stream and pool are dry—
But in the east the rain clouds fly.
Ah-heee, little brother, ’twill rain, ’twill rain,
Ah-heee, little brother, ’twill rain!
“I felt a drop on my feathered breast,
The rain clouds come from the east and west;
I felt a drop in my sheltered nest!