“What do they intend doing with those they lasso, Gilly?” asked Joan.
“They will brand them with the ranch trade-mark, and then ship them to the large packing-houses.”
Mrs. Vernon managed to get several fine photographs of the interesting work, and then the Indian guide was told to drive on. Seeking for a way out to the main trail again, Tally ascended a very steep grade. Upon reaching the top, the scouts were given another fine view of the valley on the other side of the ridge. The scene looked like a Titanic checkerboard, with its squares accurately marked off by the various farms that dotted the land. But these “dots” really were extensive ranches, as the girls learned when they drove nearer and past them.
The day had been unusually hot for the month of June in that altitude, and towards late afternoon the sky became suddenly overcast.
“Going to get wet, Tally?” asked Mr. Gilroy, leaning out to glance up at the scudding clouds.
“Much wet,” came from the guide, but he kept his horses going at the same pace as before.
Thunderstorms in the Rockies do not creep up gradually. They just whoop up, and then empty the contents of their black clouds upon any place they select,—although the clouds are impartial, as a rule, in the selection of the spot.
Had the storm known that a crowd of tenderfeet were in the ranch wagon it could scarcely have produced a greater spectacle. It seemed as if all the elements combined to make impressive for the girls this, their first experience of a thunderstorm in the Rockies.
Before the sun had quite hidden behind an inky curtain, a blinding flash cleft the cloud and almost instantaneously a deafening crash followed. Even though every one expected the thunder, it startled them. In another minute’s time the downpour began. Wherever water could find entrance, there the howling wind drove in the slanting rain.
“Every one huddle in the middle of the wagon—keep away from the canvas sides!” Mr. Gilroy tried to shriek to those behind him.