that thunder with glad ears."

Venters and Bess finished their simple meal and the few tasks around the
camp, then faced the open terrace, the valley, and the west, to watch
and await the approaching storm.

It required keen vision to see any movement whatever in the purple
clouds. By infinitesimal degrees the dark cloud-line merged upward into
the golden-red haze of the afterglow of sunset. A shadow lengthened from
under the western wall across the valley. As straight and rigid as steel
rose the delicate spear-pointed silver spruces; the aspen leaves, by
nature pendant and quivering, hung limp and heavy; no slender blade
of grass moved. A gentle splashing of water came from the ravine. Then
again from out of the west sounded the low, dull, and rumbling roll of
thunder.

A wave, a ripple of light, a trembling and turning of the aspen leaves,
like the approach of a breeze on the water, crossed the valley from the
west; and the lull and the deadly stillness and the sultry air passed
away on a cool wind.

The night bird of the canyon, with clear and melancholy notes announced
the twilight. And from all along the cliffs rose the faint murmur and
moan and mourn of the wind singing in the caves. The bank of clouds now
swept hugely out of the western sky. Its front was purple and black,
with gray between, a bulging, mushrooming, vast thing instinct with
storm. It had a dark, angry, threatening aspect. As if all the power of
the winds were pushing and piling behind, it rolled ponderously across
the sky. A red flare burned out instantaneously, flashed from the west
to east, and died. Then from the deepest black of the purple cloud burst
a boom. It was like the bowling of a huge boulder along the crags and
ramparts, and seemed to roll on and fall into the valley to bound and
bang and boom from cliff to cliff.

"Oh!" cried Bess, with her hands over her ears. "What did I tell you?"

"Why, Bess, be reasonable!" said Venters.

"I'm a coward."

"Not quite that, I hope. It's strange you're afraid. I love a storm."

"I tell you a storm down in these canyons is an awful thing. I know
Oldring hated storms. His men were afraid of them. There was one who
went deaf in a bad storm, and never could hear again."

"Maybe I've lots to learn, Bess. I'll lose my guess if this storm isn't
bad enough. We're going to have heavy wind first, then lightning and
thunder, then the rain. Let's stay out as long as we can."

The tips of the cotto