Nat answered with divers canine antics and the two turned away from the valley, the man walking with long firm strides and the dog trotting perfunctorily at his side. Their way led among the flanking spurs and foot-hills of the range, now over great fragmentary bowlders, now through yawning clefts and down winding defiles, sometimes on bare ridges of shale, anon under the dark odorous brushes of the pines. The cloud came after them, sending in advance its gusts of moist, fragrant air. A vast wing reached up to the zenith and a few big drops of rain pattered down. A morning shower in the mountains comes at race-horse speed. The swiftest birds are caught by it. A flock of noisy crows went flapping across the valley, striving in vain to outstrip the slanting flood that fell with a broad, washing roar from that rushing cloud. "We are in for a soaking, Nat," grumbled Moreton, as he plucked up the collar of his shooting jacket; "a deuced bad outcome for our first day's shooting in America!" Nat's tail was down and so were his ears. He relished the signs of the weather no more than did his stalwart master. A chilliness was creeping into the air, foretelling how disagreeable the rain was sure to be. The very trees shivered as the sunshine was shut off by the overlapping cloud. It was just as the storm was about to break that certain sharp cries peculiar to the wild turkey reached the quick ears of sportsman and dog. The man stopped short and cocked his gun, as the spaniel darted away to a short distance and then began creeping through the low underbrush, as a setter does when about to come to a point. In the next instant four large birds were flushed, breaking from cover at about forty yards, their wings making the woods resound with their loud flapping. Almost at the same moment, the "bang--pang!" of Moreton's gun, fired right and left, went echoing across the valley and battling amongst the hills. A cock and hen were stopped short and fell heavily. The dog sprang forward to lead his master to the game, and then came a blinding down-gush of rain with a roar like that of a cyclone.