reached the zenith.

A moist breeze sprang up and rushed into the storm's black heart,
feeding it with vapors from the Gulf; then in the south, the home of
the rain, another great cloud arose, piling in fluffy billows against
the grim cliffs of the Superstitions and riding against the flying
cohorts that reared their snowy heads in the north. The wind fell and
all nature lay hushed and expectant, waiting for the rain. The cattle
would not feed; the bearded ravens sat voiceless against the cliffs;
the gaunt trees and shrubs seemed to hold up their arms--for the rain
that did not come. For after all its pomp and mummery, its black
mantle that covered all the sky and the bravery of its trailing
skirts, the Storm, that rode in upon the wind like a king, slunk away
at last like a beaten craven. Its black front melted suddenly, and its
draggled banners, trailing across the western sky, vanished utterly in
the kindling fires of sunset.

As he lay beneath the starlit sky that night, Hardy saw a vision of
the end, as it would come. He saw the canyons stripped clean of their
high-standing _sahuaros_, the spring at Carrizo dry, the river
stinking with the bodies of the dead--even Hidden Water quenched at
last by the drought. Then a heavy sleep came upon him as he lay
sprawling in the pitiless heat and he dreamed--dreamed of gaunt steers
and lowing cows, and skeletons, strewn along the washes; of labor,
never ending, and sweat, dripping from his face. He woke suddenly with
the horror still upon him and gazed up at the sky, searching vainly
for the stars. The night was close and black, there was a stir among
the dead leaves as if a snake writhed past, and the wind breathed
mysteriously through the bare trees; then a confused drumming came to
his ears, something warm and wet splashed against his face, and into
his outstretched hand God sent a drop of rain.

CHAPTER XXI

THE FLOOD

The rain came to Hidden Water in great drops, warmed by the sultry
air. At the first flurry the dust rose up like smoke, and the earth
hissed; then as the storm burst in tropic fury the ground was struck
flat, the dust-holes caught the rush of water and held it in sudden
puddles that merged into pools and rivulets and glided swiftly away.
Like a famine-stricken creature, the parched earth could not drink;
its bone-dry dust set like cement beneath the too generous flood and
refused to take it in--and still the rain came down in sluicing
torre