“He borrowed a dollar from me just now,” said O’Neil, who was staring out of a window.  Suddenly he turned and addressed his host.  “Trevor, it’s going to storm.”  His voice was harsh, his eyes were eager; his tone brought the engineer to his side.  Together they looked out across the bay.

The southern sky was leaden, the evening had been shortened by a rack of clouds which came hurrying in from the sea.

“Let it storm,” said Trevor, after a moment.  “I’m ready.”

“Have you ever seen it blow here?”

“The old-timers tell me I haven’t, but—­I’ve seen some terrible storms.  Of course the place is unusual—­”

“In what way?” Eliza inquired.

“The whole country back of here is ice-capped.  This coast for a hundred miles to the east is glacial.  The cold air inland and the warm air from the Japanese Current are always at war.”

“There is a peculiar difference in air-pressures, too,” O’Neil explained.  “Over the warm interior it is high, and over the coast range it is low; so every valley becomes a pathway for the wind.  But that isn’t where the hurricanes come from.  They’re born out yonder.”  He pointed out beyond the islands from which the breakwater flung its slender arm.  “This may be only a little storm, Trevor, but some day the sea and the air will come together and wipe out all your work.  Then you’ll see that I was right.”

“You told me that more than a year ago, but I backed my skill against your prophecy.”

O’Neil answered him gravely:  “Men like you and me become over-confident of our powers; we grow arrogant, but after all we’re only pygmies.”

“If Nature beats me here, I’m a ruined man,” said the engineer.

“And if you defeat her, I’m ruined.”  O’Neil smiled at him.

“Let’s make medicine, the way the Indians did, and call upon the Spirit of the Wind to settle the question,” Eliza suggested, with a woman’s quick instinct for relieving a situation that threatened to become constrained.  She and Natalie ran to Trevor’s sideboard, and, seizing bottle and shaker, brewed a magic broth, while the two men looked on.  They murmured incantations, they made mystic passes, then bore the glasses to their companions.

As the men faced each other Natalie cried: 

“To the Wind!”

“Yes!  More power to it!” Eliza echoed.

Trevor smiled.  “I drink defiance.”

“In my glass I see hope and confidence,” said O’Neil.  “May the storm profit him who most deserves help.”

Despite their lightness, there was a certain gravity among the four, and as the night became more threatening they felt a growing suspense.  The men’s restlessness communicated itself to the girls, who found themselves listening with almost painful intentness to the voice of the wind and the rumble of the surf, which grew louder with every hour.  By bed-time a torrent of rain was sweeping past, the roof strained, the windows were sheeted with water.  Now and then the clamor ceased, only to begin with redoubled force.  Trevor’s guests were glad indeed of their snug shelter.