"A quick current of warm air going up in a thunderhead cloud," he said, "which takes a spinning motion from the general whirl of the cyclone to which it belongs. It has a whirling vortex, from the outside to the inside, and its speed gets higher toward the middle. The speed of the inside of a tornado has never been figured out, but it has been estimated at eight hundred miles an hour, or sixteen times as fast as a train."

"Eight hundred miles an hour!" Ross repeated. "But how did they find that out?"

"Not by any instrument," said Anton; "there isn't anything made that a tornado wouldn't level to the ground. But you can figure that from the size and weight of objects lifted and from the effects of tornadoes.

Anyhow, the inside of a tornado is like a vacuum, the pressure is so low.

"I remember reading in a tornado account of a storm in New England where the funnel pa.s.sed within twenty yards of a house. It was exactly as if a house filled with air were suddenly plunged into a vacuum. All the windows were blown out, the walls bulged, furniture flew out of the windows and corks were drawn from empty bottles by the air inside trying to get out to fill the vacuum in the tornado."

"That's a wonder," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ross. "But we're not going to get anything like that this time."

As the boys were talking, the distant tornado suddenly raised itself from the ground and seemed to be drawn up in the clouds again. The danger from the funnel was over. A few minutes afterwards, there came a clap of thunder and the rain commenced to fall in torrents. It rained for less than a minute, however, then was followed by a few hailstones as large as walnuts. The hail stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

Yet, though the funnel cloud had been withdrawn again into the sky, though the rain and hail had ceased, the two boys did not move from the doorway of the club-house. The sky was pressing down heavily and in the ma.s.ses of clouds that seemed to be moving in every direction, the whitish luminous cloud and the greenish black cloud could both be traced. This was no puny battle of the elements, but a veritable war.

Then, absolutely without warning, as suddenly as though some malevolent demon had picked them out for destruction, from the low-lying bank of clouds that was advancing, a long black swaying clutch thrust at them from the clouds. For a second or two the funnel swayed as though there were eyes in its tip and then s.n.a.t.c.hed at the earth with a roar and crash like a thousand trains in collision.

While one could count three, the lads watched, panic-stricken, then Anton shouted:

"Run north-west, Ross! North-west!"

Like a flash the Forecaster's advice in the event of the approach of a tornado recurred to the boy's mind, and he sprang into a full run. Ten yards, perhaps, he ran, then cast a glance over his shoulder to see if Anton were following. He saw the younger lad huddling down by the south-western corner of the club-house.

Ross colored with shame. For one second he had forgotten Anton's crippled condition.

He whirled on his heel with a speed scarcely less than that of the approaching tornado and darted back for his friend. A dozen strides took him back and he reached down for the younger lad.

As he did so, with the corner of his eye, he saw the tornado touch a neighbor's barn. The moaning suddenly swelled into a vicious and snapping roar. The point of the tornado enlarged, as it became filled with the debris of the barn, and Ross fancied he could hear the squealing of the mangled horses.

Out from the upper part of the wild whirl, high in the sky, a black spot flew. Thrown at a tangent, it fell, growing larger and more bat-like as it fluttered down, striking the earth with a crash. It was the roof of the barn.

All this had happened in the fraction of a second that had elapsed while Ross was picking up the crippled lad, and by the time that he had flung him across his shoulder, the tornado had pa.s.sed over the neighbor's farm and there was nothing left of the barn but a black bare spot. Before the out-flung roof had struck the ground, Ross was running from the track of the swiftly-moving destruction, with his chum on his shoulder.

The boy knew well that in ninety seconds or less, the tornado would be upon them, and while it swayed with a malicious eagerness from one side to the other, as though seeking for its prey, there was no doubt that it was rushing straight at them.

Second by second, the moaning grew louder, with an uncanny sucking sound as though the monster were licking its lips over the destruction yet to come. The air grew more oppressive and more still.

Twenty yards from the club-house, Ross found Dan'l crouching on the ground, quivering with fright.

"Mistah Anton, Mistah Anton," he cried, "we's all goin' to be killed!"

"Run, Dan'l!" cried Ross, as he sped past. "Run north-west! Follow us!"

White with terror, the aged negro rose and started to run, but before he had gone two yards, his steps slowed down.

"Thar's Mammy," he said, aloud. "Ah can't leave Mammy, nohow. Thar's no one to look after her."

He turned back with unsteady steps, hurrying towards the negro quarters, almost facing the approaching finger that seemed to point at him as he ran.

Ross never looked back. His terror and the terrific heat of the air choked his breathing and he gasped as he ran.

A sudden swirl of air clutched at his feet. He stumbled and almost fell.

The crippled boy's crutch slipped to the ground. Anton slid to the earth and a second swirl picked Ross's feet from under him and threw him to the ground.

Then, with a roar and a confusion which stunned the senses, the Thing struck! A legion of hands tugged at them. The earth rose up in a cloud of dust around them.

Towards them the tornado swerved, then away, just a fraction out of its course, and swung back again towards them. As in a dream, Ross saw the crutch, which had slipped out of Anton's grasp, not five yards from where they lay, move restlessly, then, touched by an unseen hand, rise up. While two heart-beats lasted, the crutch stood still and perfectly upright, and then flew straight upwards into the all-devouring maw.

The black-green fury s.n.a.t.c.hed at the waiting world.

With a roar like that of crashing universes, it swept by the boys and swung into the farm building. A hay-stack disappeared into the vortex like a puff of smoke. With a crash of gla.s.s, the tornado swept by the corner of the house, and with one wild last shriek was gone.

Gasping, Ross sat up. Across the fields the cloud swept, the long black finger still touching the ground and still bringing wreck and destruction in its wake. Ross gently raised the younger boy, who was only half-conscious from the din and tumult, for the tornado had pa.s.sed within a few yards of them. They had scarcely walked a dozen yards when the scene of destruction met them full view.

Every window in the house had been shattered and the garden was strewn with broken gla.s.s. The buggy, which had been standing before the door, was nowhere to be seen, but one wheel impaled in a tree twenty yards away, told the story. The upright of the sun-dial was gone, snapped off at the ground as though it had been a reed. The club-house remained intact. The track of the tornado was not more than forty feet wide, but where it had pa.s.sed, the ground was swept clean and bare.

Only one thing remained, and that, by one of the freaks of the tornado, was the pedestal and the large globe of crystal. It had not even been fastened down; it had pa.s.sed through the centre of the tornado and yet it stood there as unwinking as the sun itself. Stood there all by itself, sharply gleaming against the black ground--

What was that lying on the farther side of it?

"Go back, Anton, go back!" said Ross, hoa.r.s.ely.

But Anton had seen it, too.

He shook his head.

Haltingly, step by step, the two boys advanced, Anton's hand on Ross's shoulder, to the figure lying on the ground beyond the sun-dial, motionless and oh, so still.

Behind the fast-flying clouds the sun shone out, shone clear and strong on the crystal, standing on its pedestal, and the gleam, pa.s.sing through, fell full on the face of the man.

"Dan'l! Dan'l!" the crippled lad cried, and dropped to the ground beside him.

He was not hurt. He would never be hurt any more.

Ross looked down at the faithful old darky, who, despite his terror and in the teeth of certain death, had turned back to try to save the aged blind woman in the negro quarters. The tornado had dealt kindly with him. His ragged clothing fluttered in the wind, but his kind old face was peaceful.

The sunlight, gleaming through the crystal, made a halo of light around the negro's head.

"Don't!" said Ross, laying his hand on Anton's shoulder. "There's mighty few of us that'll ever get the chance to die like Dan'l."

CHAPTER IX

THE TRAIL OF THE HURRICANE

"Two o'clock, Tuesday morning, August the seventeenth, Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen!