“O no! We’re going to have a norther, and if there should happen to be rain with it we don’t want it to catch us out here on the prairie.”
“Is that all?” exclaimed Ned, somewhat impatiently. “That’s a pretty excuse for frightening a fellow half to death, isn’t it? I thought something was going to happen.”
“Something is going to happen!” replied George.
“You seem to have grown very much afraid of the rain lately,” continued Ned. “It was only a day or two ago that you stood out in a hard shower, and never seemed to care for it.”
“Yes; but if we have rain now, it will be a different sort, as you will find.”
“I don’t see any signs of it yet,” said Ned, looking up at the sky. “I hope it will cool the air a little,” he added, a moment later, pulling off his hat and drawing his handkerchief across his face, which was very much flushed, “for I am almost roasted. I declare, I must have ridden fast. Just see how my horse sweats!”
“Mine sweats just as badly,” replied George, “and he has been staked out ever since you have been gone.”
Ned looked at his cousin’s horse, then glanced at his own, and was very much surprised at what he saw. Both animals were wet with perspiration, and stood with their heads down and their sides heaving, as if they had been ridden long and rapidly. There was not a breath of air stirring, as Ned found, when he came to look about him. The atmosphere was close and oppressive, and filled with a thick haze, which seemed to magnify every object within the range of his vision, and overhead, the sun rode in a cloudless sky, sending down his beams with fearful intensity.
“Whew!” panted Ned. He dropped his reins, hung his rifle upon the horn of his saddle, peeled off his coat, vest and neck-tie, and threw open the collar of his shirt. “Whew!” he gasped. “We shall be overcome with the heat before we can reach the timber. I had no idea it was so hot! I don’t see how you can stand it, with those thick clothes on.”
“I am pretty warm now, that’s a fact; but I shall be cool enough by and by, and so will you!”