“Don’t be scared, old chap,” Tom patted his prancing pony’s neck. A forked tongue of lightning, at that instant striking the prairie, had illumined the landscape with a weird, unnatural bluish glare.
When the crashing thunder came the rain was falling steadily, and the cooling drops, beating and splashing down, proved most grateful to both riders and steeds.
The next moment the wind was making them bend far over on their horses’ necks to escape its blasts. The piled up masses of clouds were now sweeping across the zenith, and the yellowish glow over nature became replaced by tones of a lowering gray.
“Here it comes!” yelled Bob. “Look out, Tom!”
Beyond, everything was shut from view by an advancing curtain of driving rain. As it swept on, accompanied by a gale of shrieking wind, ponies and boys braced themselves to withstand the shock. They were now in the midst of the full fury of the storm. Every instant bluish forks, darting forth like serpents’ tongues, criss-crossed against the clouds or struck the prairie. Peals of thunder crashed and reverberated in a series of appalling shocks which soon rendered the frightened ponies almost unmanageable.
Bob Somers could see his companion ahead only as a shadowy, indistinct form, sawing hard on the bit to keep his frightened horse from bolting.
He too had trouble. Now and again he spoke in soothing tones to his mustang, though the sound of his voice was almost drowned by the dull even thudding of the rain and the blasts of wind.
A gleam of lightning, flashing through the darkness with startling brilliancy, caused his thoughts abruptly to change. Bob uttered an exclamation. He had seen the bolt strike the prairie just beyond. The force of the thunder which immediately followed made him fairly gasp and his pony to plunge wildly ahead. But before the reverberations had ceased Bob Somers made an alarming discovery. Unmindful of plunging horse and beating rain he managed to stand up in his stirrups and yell desperately with all the power at his command:
“Look out, Tom! Look out!”
Sweeping down upon them from the rear was a herd of stampeded mustangs, and they were perilously close at hand.