Half an hour later the Overland girls were chattering in low tones in their own tent. Hippy and the general were already snoring in theirs, while the two women guests were having some difficulty in getting to sleep in their strange surroundings.
Grace had thrown herself down on her cot where she lay pondering on the mystery of the broken arrow. After half an hour of this she got up to have a look at the weather before turning in for the night, observing that the campfire, fanned by a breeze from the mountains, was flickering and snapping as if in protest at being disturbed.
Shading her eyes with a hand and gazing up to the mountains, Grace saw dark clouds swirling about the Four Peaks in the distance, and heard a deep-throated, far away roar of thunder. A dull red flash on the opposite side of the range of mountains reminded her of flashes from the big guns on the battle front.
“I think we are going to catch it,” observed the Overland girl. “Can it be that the arrow was a storm warning?” Grace dismissed the thought as improbable, and, returning to her tent, laid aside her clothes and got into bed. She was awakened some two hours later by tremendous gusts of wind, accompanied by flapping canvas and a heavy downpour of rain.
Lightning flashes were outlining the black clouds, and crashes of thunder reverberated from peak to peak, seeming finally to lose themselves in the black depths of the canyons.
Grace got up and dressed, and, putting on her slicker, stepped out. The raindrops beat on her face, stinging like tiny hailstones.
The ponies were whinneying and rearing, so Grace stepped over and tried to quiet them, and there Ike Fairweather found her as she stood revealed when a flash of lightning deluged the camp with a blinding light.
“That you, Mrs. Gray?” he called, uncertain just which one of the outfit it was that he saw.
“Yes.” Grace had to shout to make herself heard above the roar of the gale. “Where is the lieutenant?”
“Sleepin’. Think the tents will hold?” questioned Ike anxiously.