So I sat--I know not how long--chilled from spine to brisket, my stiff boots growing wet, my discarded gloves a pulp, like my hat, and melted hail trickling from the rubber coat to my legs. At length the hail-stones fell more gently, the near view opened, revealing white winter on all save the steep, gray Needles; the thick, white curtain of hail departed slowly; the hail where I was fell more scantily still. It was slowly going away,--the great low-prowling cloud,--we should presently be left in peace unscathed, though it was at its tricks still. Its brimming, spilling-over electricity was now playing a new prank--mocking my ears with crackling noises, as of a camp-fire somewhere on earth, or in air. While I listened curiously to these, my eye fell on Timberline. He was turning, leaning, crouching, listening too. When he crouched, it was to peer at those old footprints I had noticed. There was something frightful in the sight of his face, shrunk to half its size, and I called to reassure him, and beckoned that it was all right, that we were all right. I doubt if he saw or heard me. Something somewhere near my head set up a delicate sound. It seemed in my hat. I rose and began to wander, bewildered by this. The hail was now falling very fine and gentle, when suddenly I was aware of its stinging behind my ear more sharply than it had done at all. I turned my face in its direction and found its blows harmless, while the stinging in my ear grew sharper. The hissing continued close to my head whenever I walked. It resembled the little watery escape of gas from a charged bottle whose cork is being slowly drawn. I was now more really disturbed than I had been during the storm’s worst, and meeting Scipio, who was also wandering, I asked if he felt anything. He nodded uneasily, when, suddenly--I know not why--I snatched my hat off. The hissing was in the brim, and it died out as I looked at the leather binding and the stitches. I expected to see some insect there, or some visible reason for the noise. I saw nothing, but the pricking behind my ear had also stopped. Then I knew my wet hat had been charged like a Leyden jar with electricity. Scipio, who had watched me, jerked his hat off also. “Lights on steer horns are nothing to this,” I began, when a piercing scream cut me short. Timberline, at the other side of the stony platform, had clapped his hands to his head. “Take off your hat,” I shouted. But he had fallen on his knees, and was ripping, tearing his clothes. He plucked and dragged at the old rags next his skin. Then he flung his hands to the sky.