371CHAPTER XL
THE RAINS
No sooner had this radical clean-up of the body politic been consummated than the rains began. That means little to any but a Californian. To him it means everything. We were quite new to the climate and the conditions, so that the whole thing was a great surprise.
For a month past it had been threatening. The clouds gathered and piled and blackened until they seemed fairly on the point of bursting. One would not have given two cents for his chances of a dry skin were he to start on a journey across the street. Yet somehow nothing happened. Late in the afternoon, perhaps, the thunderous portents would thin. The diffused light would become stronger. Far down in the west bars of sunlight would strike. And by evening the stars shone brilliantly from a sky swept clear. After a dozen repetitions of this phenomenon we ceased to pay any attention to it. Somebody named it “high fog,” which did well enough to differentiate it from a genuine rain-bringing cloud. Except for that peculiar gourd that looks exactly like a watermelon, these “high fogs” were the best imitation of a real thing I have ever seen. They came up like rain clouds, they looked precisely like rain clouds, they went through all the performances of rain clouds–except that never, never did they rain!
372But the day of the Vigilante execution the sky little by little turned shimmering gray; so that the sun shining from it looked like silver; and the shadows of objects were diffused and pale. A tepid wind blew gently but steadily from the southeast. No clouds were visible at first; but imperceptibly, around the peaks, filmy veils formed seemingly out of the gray substance of the very sky itself. How these thickened and spread I did not see; but when I came out of the Bella Union, after a long and interesting evening of discussion, I found no stars; and, as I stood looking upward, a large warm drop splashed against my face.
Sometime during the night it began to rain in earnest. We were awakened by its steady drumming on the canvas of our tent.
“My Lord! but she sure is raining!” said Johnny across the roar of sound.
“Don’t tech the canvas!” warned Old. “If you do, she’ll leak like a spout where you teched her!”
“Thank heaven, that high fog scared us into ditching around the tent,” said Cal fervently.
But our satisfaction was short-lived. We had ditched the tent, to be sure, but we had badly underestimated the volume of a California downpour.
Before many minutes had passed Johnny gave a disgusted snort.