She rode on and on, asking herself these questions and finding no answer in the whirl and eddy of dust blown at her by the wind, in the limitless stretch of prairie, in the suffocating thickness of heat which enveloped the way of the wind.
Intense heat. Sultry, parching, enervating, sure precursor, if she had thought to remember, if she had been less engrossed in the bitterness of her questionings, of a storm.
Soon, aroused by the intensity of this heat, which burned like the blast from an oven, she whirled about and turned her broncho's head the other way.
It was time, for that way lay her home and danger threatened it.
At the moment of her turning a blast blew with trumpet-like warning into the day, blazing redly like a fire of logs quickened by panting breaths.
A lurid light, like the light of Judgment Day or the wrath of God spread while she looked.
It enveloped her.
It was as if she gazed upon earth and sky through a bit of bright red stained glass.
In the southern skies, in the direction of her home, clouds piled high, black, threatening.
Then she heard a rushing sound of wind, wailing, moaning, threshing, roaring sullenly in the distance.