The darkness increased; the clouds hung lower and lower, the lightning flashed more frequently and fiercely, and finally the flood-gates of the clouds were opened and the rain fell with such denseness that the mass of drops made literal sheets. The little brooks were filled, and tumbled into the creek which ran down the canyon where were the picnickers. Bred in the region, the picnickers knew what such a flood meant, and with the first sound of thunder had clambered up the canyon side, where they sat unsheltered and awaiting events. The very first downpour wetted every young man and woman to the bone and filled thin boots with water. The worst of it was that they had not yet eaten. They had brought up with them two burros laden with supplies, and two mule teams, which had dragged them up into the wooded elysium beside the tumbling creek of the canyon. When the storm gathered it was at a moment when the burros stood, still unloaded, and the mules attached to the two wagons still unhitched. They, the four-footed things, knew what the thunder and the darkness meant. They knew, somehow, that the upper canyon was no place for them, and, reasoning in the four-footed way, they exercised the limbs they had, obeying the orders of such brains as they owned, and gathering themselves together for independent action, went down the canyon clatteringly in a bunch. Foodless and scared, the picnickers huddled far up the little canyon's side and sat awed and watchful as the lightning flashed about them and the waters rose beneath them. The torrent of rain loosened the soil above, and they were so drenched in clay-colored water coming down, and sat so still beneath it, that they looked like cheap terra cotta images. Suddenly the thunder ceased, the rainfall ended, and this particular slight area of Arizona was Arizona again. The power of the rain-maker was limited. Through four yellow miles of yellow muck, beside a temporarily yellow stream, waded for hours wearily a dreadful picnic party, seeking in disgust the town of Cougarville. They reached their separate homes somehow, and washed and went to bed.