“It’s mighty nice—mighty nice, Lengthy, he said. “Yet, if you want my advice, I’ll tell you what I’d do; I’d take a half hitch around a boulder with them guy-ropes, if I was you. Even then, you wouldn’t have no sure thing. Wait till you see one of our little breezes come cantering over the prairies, son; you’ll wish you had a cast-iron tent, fastened to the bowels of the earth with bridge-bolts.”
“I’m sure I thank you awfully, old man, for your interest, you know,” replied Cunningham, “but,” inspecting his moorings carefully through his glasses, “I think she’ll stand it. The pressure of the wind on a normal surface is only two pounds to the square foot, for a velocity of twenty miles an hour, and, of course, on oblique surfaces—like the tent-walls—much less, much less. Why, even in the cases of exceptional storms, the pressure does not rise above eighty or ninety pounds, and as I was careful to get only the best of canvas and cordage, she should stand that, don’t you think?”
Neighbor Case was impressed, if not converted. “That’s a great head you have on you, Lengthy,” he said admiringly. “You seem to know old Mr. Wind’s ways as well as if you and he had played in the back yard together when you was boys; but I want to tell you something. He may act like that in books, and only press you for so many pounds as you tell me about when you’re normal and he’s hitting a certain gait, but you can’t tell what he’ll do when he gets you out here all alone on the prairies. He may forget the rules and press you just as hard as he darn pleases; or he may shift the cut and knock you into a cocked hat before you can get the books out to show what he ought to do. No, Lengthy, book-learning is good, and you won’t catch me saying nothing agin it; but if I was you, I’d let it slide on this occasion, and tie her up to a boulder.”
Cunningham, however, had a trait in common with many gentle-natured people—that of mild obstinacy—and he stuck to his tent just as it was.
We could not urge him further, so there the matter dropped—until the day of the storm, then several other things came to earth.
We woke one morning to find the country wrapped in a fury of red light—not the cheery glow of daybreak, but a baleful crimson, as though it were raining blood on a world of fire. In the west a massive heap of storm was rolling, against whose murky blackness the small buttes stood out ruddily. It was a boiling storm; the vapors curled and twisted in a way that meant wind and hail, and plenty of both.
“By the great Hohokus! We’re going to catch it this trip,” said Billy, and the three who composed the household of his ranch began scrambling about in nervous haste, gathering up the things that might be blown away by wind.
In the middle of it he called out to me, “Say, Hank, don’t you think we ought to give old Cunny a lift? Here’s where his shanty comes down, sure!”
This was more than kind of Billy, for about the only thing in the world he feared was thunder and lightning, and this filled him with a dread that neither his strong will nor good sense could in the least abate or control.
Of course, I could not refuse. We started on a run for Camp Cunningham, a mile or so down the river. Yet, though the distance was so small, we had reason to doubt that we could cover it. Half-way, a hailstone the size of a child’s fist went whistling over our heads, ricocheted along the sod in great bounds; then came another and another—the skirmish fire of the storm.