“No rain for a year!” echoed the boys.
“That’s right. Maybe a drop now and then, but not to amount to anything.”
“How do you get water then?” asked Ralph, for the ponies had been watered from a big tub filled from a wooden pipe.
“Pipe it from a dry spring.”
“That’s a funny sort of spring—a dry one,” exclaimed Walt.
“It’s so, just the same,” replied the hermit, rather angrily. “We call a dry spring one that you have to dig out, one that doesn’t come to the surface. We find ’em with divining rods.”
“Well, it looks to me as if you might get some rain to–night,” said Jack, who had risen and looked out of the door.
“I guess not,” said the hermit confidently. “The sheep ain’t baaing, and they mos’ gen’ally always do afore rain.”
“Well, there’s something coming up then, or I’m no judge of weather.”
At the same time a low, distant rumbling was heard.