In Buddy's opinion, you never could be sure about God; He
bestowed mysterious mercies and strange punishments, and His
ways were past finding out. Buddy tipped his palms together
and repeated all the prayers his mother had taught him and
then, with a flash of memory, finished with "Oh, God,
please!" just as mother had done long ago on the dry drive.
After that he meditated uncomfortably for a few minutes and
added in a faint whisper, "Oh, shucks! You don't want to pay
any attention to a fellow cussing a little when he's mad. I
could easy make that up if you helped me out some way."
Buddy believed afterwards that God yielded to persuasion and
decided to give him a chance. For not more than five minutes
passed when a far-off murmur grew to an indefinable roar, and
the wind whooped down off the Snowies so fiercely that even
the dugout quivered a little and rattled dirt down on Buddy
through the poles just over his head.
At first this seemed an unlucky circumstance, for the Indians
came down into the dugout for shelter, and now Buddy was
afraid to breathe in the quiet intervals between the gusts.
Just below him he could hear the occasional mutters of
laconic sentences and grunted answers as the bucks settled
themselves for the night, and he had a short, panicky spell
of fearing that the poles would give way beneath him and drop
him in upon them.
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