every effort of the gentler divinities to send succor. The clouds would
gather back in the mountains, the thunder would growl, the tall masses
would rise up and advance threateningly, then suddenly cower, their
strength and purpose ooze away; they flattened out; the hot, parched
breath of the earth smote them; the dark, heavy masses were re-resolved
into thin vapor, and the sky came through where but a few moments
before there had appeared to be deep behind deep of water-logged
clouds. Sometimes a cloud would pass by, and one could see trailing
beneath and behind it a sheet of rain, like something let down that did
not quite touch the earth, the hot air vaporizing the drops before they
reached the ground.

Two or three times the wind got in the south, and those low, dun-
colored clouds that are nothing but harmless fog came hurrying up and
covered the sky, and city folk and women folk said the rain was at last
near. But the wise ones knew better. The clouds had no backing, the
clear sky was just behind them; they were only the nightcap of the
south wind, which the sun burnt up before ten o'clock.

Every storm has a foundation that is deeply and surely laid, and those
shallow surface-clouds that have no root in the depths of the sky
deceive none but the unwary.

At other times, when the clouds were not reabsorbed by the sky and rain
seemed imminent, they would suddenly undergo a change that looked like
curdling, and when clouds do that no rain need be expected. Time and
again I saw their continuity broken up, saw them separate into small
masses,--in fact saw a process of disintegration and disorganization
going on, and my hope of rain was over for that day. Vast spaces would
be affected suddenly; it was like a stroke of paralysis: motion was