And bombarded we certainly have been--by a terrific hailstorm that
made us feel for a time that our very lives were in danger. The day
had been excessively warm, with brilliant sunshine until about three
o'clock, when dark clouds were seen to be coming up over the Bozeman
Valley, and everyone said that perhaps at last we would have the rain
that was so much needed, I have been in so many frightful storms that
came from innocent-looking clouds, that now I am suspicious of
anything of the kind that looks at all threatening. Consequently, I
was about the first person to notice the peculiar unbroken gray that
had replaced the black of a few minutes before, and the first, too, to
hear the ominous roar that sounded like the fall of an immense body of
water, and which could be distinctly heard fifteen minutes before the
storm reached us.
While I stood at the door listening and watching, I saw several people
walking about in the garrison, each one intent upon his own business
and not giving the storm a thought. Still, it seemed to me that it
would be just as well to have the house closed tight, and calling
Hulda we soon had windows and doors closed--not one minute too soon,
either, for the storm came across the mountains with hurricane speed
and struck us with such force that the thick-walled log houses fairly
trembled. With the wind came the hail at the very beginning, changing
the hot, sultry air into the coldness of icebergs.
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