don't you hear that kind of
rumble, up the canyon?"

She listened again, then rushed towards the house while Wunpost made a
dash for the corral. The cloudburst was coming down their canyon.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ANSWER

The rumbling up the canyon was hardly a noise; it was a tremulous
shudder of earth and air like the grinding that accompanies an
earthquake. But Wunpost knew, and the Campbells knew, what it meant and
what was to follow; and as it increased to a growl they threw down the
corral bars and rushed the stock up to the high ground. They waited, and
Wunpost ran back to get his dog, and then the dammed waters broke loose.
A great spray of yellow mud splashed out from Corkscrew Gorge and a
pinon-trunk was snapped high into the air; and while all the earth
trembled the dam of mud burst forth, forced on by the weight of
backed-up waters. Then more trees came smashing through, followed by
muddy tides of driftwood, and as suddenly the debacle ceased.

There was quiet, except for the hoarse rumble of boulders as they ground
their way down through the Gorge; and for the muffled crack of submerged
tree-trunks, straining and breaking beneath the ever-mounting jamb. It
rose up and overflowed in a gush of turbid waters, rose still higher and
overflowed again; and then it broke loose in a crash like imminent
thunder--the cloudburst had conquered the Gorge. It went through it and
over it, spreading out on its sloping sides; and when the worst crush
seemed over it washed higher yet and came through with an all-devouring
surge. In a flash the whole creekbed was a mass of mud and driftwood,
which swashed about and swayed drunkenly on; and, as great tree-boles
came battering through, the jamb broke abruptly and spewed out a sea of
yellow water.

The fugitives climbed up higher, followed by the cat and dog, and the
burros which had been left in the corrals; but the flood bore swiftly
on, leaving the ranch unsullied by its burden of brush and mud. The jamb
broke down again, letting out a second gush of water which crept up
among the lower trees, but just as the Gorge opened up for the third
time the flood-crest struck the lower gorge and stopped. Once more the
trees and logs which had formed the jamb above bobbed and floated on the
surface of a pond; and while the Campbells gazed and wept the turbid
flood swung back swiftly, inundating their ranch with its mud.

First the orchard was overflowed, then the garden above