"George," said he, "shooting Pap wouldn't help little Sissy, would it?
You and I can't handle this job. My brother will go. But--but, my poor
old George, don't make ropes out of sand."

So I went.

When I started, the south-east wind, the rain-wind, had begun to blow,
and it sounds incredible, but I was not aware of it. The pestilence
had paralysed one's normal faculties. But riding due south-east I
became, sooner or later, sensible of the change in the atmosphere. And
then I remembered a chance remark of the doctor's. "We shall have this
diphtheria with us till the rain washes it away," and one of the
squatters had replied, bitterly, "Paradise'll be a cemetery an'
nothin' else before the rain comes."

Passing through some pine woods I heard the soughing of the tree-tops.
They were entreating the rain to come--to come quickly. How well I
knew that soft, sibilant invocation! Higher up the few tufts of bunch
grass that remained rustled in anticipation. On the top of the
mountain, in ordinary years a sure sign of a coming storm, floated a
veil of opaline sea mist ...

I found Pap and a greaser skinning a dead heifer. Pap nodded sulkily,
thinking of his hay and his beans and bacon.

"What's up?" he growled.

"It's going to rain," said I.