For a time the thunder ceased, the air grew thick and close, and the silence of death seemed to have fallen upon the world.
Then came a mighty roar, as if the elements were defying each other, and the rain was dashed upon the earth or swirled through the air with furious force.
The dashing of the rain upon his face aroused Jimmy, and he rose up, fighting against the wind, which threatened to take him off his feet, and, holding out his hands, he gathered enough of the down-pouring flood to appease his thirst.
Then he staggered on, buffeted by the wind and blinded by the driving rain, turning this way and that to escape the lashings of the deluge that swept over him, until his strength gave out, and he dropped to the ground more dead than alive.
At that instant he felt himself picked up and whirled through the air as if he had been a feather.
Then he knew no more until, opening his eyes, he found the sun shining upon his face and the clear, blue sky above him.
But the sun was not more than an hour high, and the thought that he must pass another night alone upon the prairie was discouraging.
His clothes were wet as they could be, and the cool wind, blowing upon him, made him tremble and shiver.
He was bruised and sore and weak, but happily his "ride upon the storm" had not resulted in serious injury. There were no broken bones to disable him.
The water he had drank had refreshed him greatly, but oh, how hunger gnawed upon him!
He sat up and looked about him in shivering despair. He found that he had been lying upon the verge of a fissure in the ground, such as are often come upon in prairie countries.
It was but a few feet deep and three or four wide at the top. He threw himself forward, face downward, and looked listlessly into this cleft in the earth, thinking that perhaps, if he had strength enough left to gather an armful or two of grass to lie upon, a bed down there, sheltered as it would be from the wind, would be more comfortable than where he then was.
But as his dull eyes roved over the bottom of the narrow chasm, they saw something that put new life and hope into his despairing heart.
A few yards from where he lay, evidently blown there by the storm that had just passed, were three or four prairie-chickens, huddled together, with drenched plumage, their lives drowned out of them.