Rustlers in the Sky

All summer Sula Valley cattlemen had burned extra candles to the Virgin, and had spoken bluntly to their patron saint. Such measures had once been credited with bringing 100 inches of rain a year, but since January only five inches had fallen. Shoulder-high grass turned brown, and the scrawny, tick-infested cattle fell dead of starvation.

The United Fruit Co., whose banana plantings cover a third of the valley, had had better luck with its rainmaking methods. The company's Texas-bred pilot, stocky Joe M. Silverthorne, did the trick by dropping Dry Ice pellets into passing clouds.

When a hard-pressed cattleman commented, "La Frutera's rainmaker is capturing our clouds with a net!" many were inclined to agree that some kind of cloud-rustling was indeed going on. Local newspapers ran cartoons that showed Pilot Silverthorne as an airborne cowboy herding clouds with a lariat.

Two weeks ago, to clear itself of the charge, the company made the cattlemen an offer: "We will either stop making rain altogether or try to make rain over your part of the valley, as you choose." The cattlemen chose rain. Last week Pilot Silverthorne gave it to them. Spotting a likely cloud, he hopped into his Lockheed Lodestar, let go with a single Dry Ice pellet fired from a Very pistol. Within three hours, an inch and a half of rain had turned San Pedro's dusty streets into bogs. Bragged Texan Silverthorne: "Say the word and I'll flood the country."

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