Mr. Masterson crouched upon the ground, making the saddle a roof to cover his head, the skirts held tight about his shoulders by the girths. The roar grew until from a million drums it improved to be a million flails on as many threshing-floors. Mr. Masterson clawed the saddleskirts tight as with a swish and a swirl the hailstorm was upon him. The round hailstones beat upon the saddle like buckshot. They leaped and bounded along the ground. They showed of a size and hardness to compare with those toys meant for children’s games. Saved by the saddle, Mr. Masterson came through without a mark. His horse, with nothing more defensive than a square of saddle-blanket, had no such luck. Above the drumming of the hailstones Mr. Masterson might hear that unfortunate animal as, torn by mixed emotions of pain, amazement and indignation, it bucked about the scene in a manner that would have done infinite grace to a circus. A best feature of the hailstorm was that it did not last five minutes; it passed to the south and east, and its mutterings grew fainter and more faint with every moment. The storm over, Mr. Masterson caught up his horse, which seemed much subdued of spirit by what it had gone through. As gently as might be—to humour the bruises—he recinched the heavy saddle in its place. “Better keep you moving now, old boy,” quoth Mr. Masterson, “it’ll take the soreness out. You needn’t shout about it,” he concluded, as the sorely battered horse gave a squeal of pain; “a hailstone isn’t a bullet, and it might have been worse, you know.” Again Mr. Masterson stretched southward, and again the moon and stars came out to light the way. The storm had drawn forth the acrid earth-smells that sleep in the grass-roots on the plains. To mix with these, it brought a breath from the pine-sown Rockies four hundred miles away. These are the odours which soak into a man and make him forever of the West. It was broad day when Mr. Masterson rode down to the lonely ford of the Medicine Lodge. He sighed with relief as his hawk-eye showed him how no one had passed since the storm. “I’m in luck!” said he. Mr. Masterson hoppled his horse and set that tired animal to feed among the fresh green of the bottom. Then he unslung a pair of field-glasses, which he wore for the good of his office, and sent a backward glance along the trail. Rod by rod he picked it up for miles. There was no one in sight; he had come in ample time. “I had the best of him ten miles by that cut-off,” ruminated Mr. Masterson.