His patience at last began to give way; his heart was sinking. The messenger had been even more [v]dilatory than he was prepared to expect. Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to tell of his danger. The sun was going down, leaving a great glory of gold and crimson clouds and an [v]opaline haze upon the purple mountains. The last rays fell on the bronze feathers of the turkey still lying tied to the broken vines on the ledge. And now there were only frowning masses of dark clouds in the west; and there were frowning masses of clouds overhead. The shadow of the coming night had fallen on the autumnal foliage in the deep valley; in the place of the opaline haze was only a gray mist. And presently there came, sweeping along between the parallel mountain ranges, a somber raincloud. The lad could hear the heavy drops splashing on the tree-tops in the valley, long, long before he felt them on his head. The roll of thunder sounded among the crags. Then the rain came down tumultuously, not in columns but in livid sheets. The lightnings rent the sky, showing, as it seemed to him, glimpses of the glorious brightness within,--too bright for human eyes. He clung desperately to his precarious perch. Now and then a fierce rush of wind almost tore him from it. Strange fancies beset him. The air was full of that wild [v]symphony of nature, the wind and the rain, the pealing thunder, and the thunderous echo among the cliffs, and yet he thought he could hear his own name ringing again and again through all the tumult, sometimes in Pete's voice, sometimes in George's shrill tones. Ethan became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds. The wind continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousness was beginning to fail. George Birt had indeed forgotten him,--forgotten even the promised "whings." Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in his trap, for it was empty, but when he reached the mill, he found that the miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt's attention. To [v]sophisticated people, the boy might have seemed as [v]grotesque as the cub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his baggy jeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits, reaching to his shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in front. His red head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old white wool hat; and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as that with which the cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in natural history.