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The curtain had acted as a weather vane, the wind had hauled to the east. The sky, too, had dulled. Little lumpy clouds showed near the horizon line, and, sailing above these, hung a dirt spot of vapor, while aloft glowed some prismatic sundogs, shimmering like opals. Etched against the distance, with a tether line fastened to the spar buoy, lay the Susie Ann.

This made me feel ghastly, for I knew he had heard; nothing, spoken or unspoken, ever escaped him. Poor Seppi looked distressed, and did not finish his remark. The goblets rose and clove their way into the sky, a triplet of radiant sundogs, and disappeared. Why didn't they stay? It seemed a bad sign, and depressed me. Should I ever see mine again? Would Seppi ever see his?

Perhaps you can make something of those nasty, sharp puffs of wind which keep lifting the ground snow at intervals." Robb shrugged his fur-coated shoulders, and glanced up at the sun. It seemed to be struggling hard to pierce a grey haze which hung over the mountains. The sundogs, too, could be seen, but, like the sun itself, they were dim and glowed rather than shone.

The gale that swept the prairies on Wednesday had died away. The mercury in the tubes at the trader's store had sunk to the nethermost depths. The sundogs blazed in the eastern sky, and even the rapids of the Running Water seemed turned to solid blue. Borne on the wings of the blast, straight from the frozen pole, the Ice King had swooped upon the sheltered valley.

A pallid sun, low, gleaming just over a rampart of mountain-tops. Sundogs heralds of stormy weather fiercely staring, like sentries, upon either hand of the mighty sphere of light. Vast glaciers shimmering jewel-like in the steely light of the semi-Arctic evening.

By early March the Air Weather Service and Dr. Hynek had some positive identifications. According to the old records, with these solutions and those that Sign and Grudge had already found, about 50 per cent of the reported UFO's could now be positively identified as hoaxes, balloons, planets, sundogs, etc. It was now time to start phase two, the publicity campaign.

None of the descriptions could even vaguely be called a pinpoint of light. This aspect of a definite shape seemed to eliminate the sundog theory too. Sundogs, or parhelia, as they are technically known, are caused by ice particles reflecting a diffused light. This would not give a sharp outline. I also recalled two instances where Air Force pilots had chased sundogs.

The cabin was large and well built. It stood looking across the gulch, and half-way down it, over the tops of the dark green pines and facing towards the western horizon, where the pink lights played and the little sundogs gambolled in the fall of the short grey snowy afternoons.

Balloons, airplanes, and astronomical bodies are the commoner stimuli. Birds and insects are common also, but usually are seen at such close range that they are nearly always recognized. Infrequently observed things, such as sundogs, mirages, huge fireballs, and a host of other unusual flying objects, are also known stimuli.