“And some story teller, too,” laughed Ralph. “Do you believe that, Jim?”
“I ain’t sayin’ no and I ain’t sayin’ yes. I’m jes’ relatin’ the facts as they was told to me,” said Jim, with a twinkle in his eye.
Ralph had half a mind to tell Mountain Jim some of the staggering yarns he had heard along the southwestern border during his experiences in that country of tall men and tall stories; but at that instant something happened that quite put everything else out of his head.
Just above the entrance to the cave there was a huge rock which appeared, either from constant frost and thaw or from some other cause, to have slipped from its position among the other giant boulders, for it was now perilously poised just above the small entrance to the cavern. The boy had noticed this rock when they slipped into the cave, but with the excitement of the cougar and the roar and crash of the storm, which was now at its height, he had quite forgotten it.
He now noticed that all around this rock the water from the hillside above was pouring in a perfect torrent. The rain was coming down so hard that it fairly hissed on the ground as it fell. Under these conditions the whole steep hillside was a roaring sheet of water, but just above the pile of rocks under which they crouched was a small gully which, of course, attracted more water than any part of the hillside in the vicinity.
“That water’s coming down in a pretty considerable waterspout,” remarked Mountain Jim, as he followed the direction of Ralph’s eyes and noticed the cascade of rain water that was pouring like a veil in front of the cave mouth.
“Yes, Jim, and I’ve noticed something else, too. See that rock up there?”
“Yes, what of it? The water’s coming against it and it is dividing the cataract so that it doesn’t splash back in here.”
“Not only that; but it’s doing something else; something that may make trouble for us.”