“Have you been to all these places?” asked Bob.

“Many times,” replied California John.  “From Stanislaus to the San Bernardino desert I’ve ridden.”

“How big a country is that?”

“It’s about four hundred mile long, and about eighty mile wide as the crow flies—­a lot bigger as a man must ride.”

“All big mountains?”

“Surely.”

“You must have been everywhere?”

“No,” said California John, “I never been to Jack Main’s Canon.  It’s too fur up, and I never could get time off to go in there.”

So this man, too, the ranger whose business it was to travel far and wide in the wild country, sighed for that which lay beyond his right of way!  Suddenly Bob was filled with a desire to transcend all these activities, to travel on and over the different rights of way to which all the rest of the world was confined until he knew them all and what lay beyond them.  The impulse was but momentary, and Bob laughed at himself as it passed.

“Something hid beyond the ranges,” he quoted softly to himself.

Suddenly he looked up, and gathered his reins.

“John,” he said, “we’re going to catch that storm.”

“Surely,” replied the old man looking at him with surprise; “just found that out?”

“Well, we’d better hurry.”

“What’s the use?  It’ll catch us, anyhow.  We’re shore due to get wet.”

“Well, let’s hunt a good tree.”

“No,” said California John, “this is a thunder-storm, and trees is too scurce.  You just keep ridin’ along the open road.  I’ve noticed that lightnin’ don’t hit twice in the same place mainly because the same place don’t seem to be thar any more after the first time.”

The first big drops of the storm delayed fully five minutes.  It did seem foolish to be jogging peacefully along at a foxtrot while the tempest gathered its power, but Bob realized the justice of his companion’s remarks.

When it did begin, however, it made up for lost time.  The rain fell as though it had been turned out of a bucket.  In an instant every runnel was full.  The water even flowed in a thin sheet from the hard surface of the ground.  The men were soaked.

Then came the thunder in a burst of fury and noise.  The lightning flashed almost continuously, not only down, but aslant, and even—­Bob thought—­up.  The thunder roared and reverberated and reechoed until the world was filled with its crashes.  Bob’s nerves were steady with youth and natural courage, but the implacable rapidity with which assault followed assault ended by shaking him into a sort of confusion.  His horse snorted, pricking its ears backward and forward, dancing from side to side.  The lightning seemed fairly to spring into being all about them, from the substance of the murk in which they rode.

“Isn’t this likely to hit us?” he yelled at California John.

“Liable to,” came back the old man’s reply across the roar of the tempest.