He talked on, half to himself, as the great spiral reached and lengthened; and then he shouted again, for it had struck the ground, though where it was impossible to tell. The high rim of the canyon cut off all but the high peaks, and they could see nothing but the waterspout now; and it, as if stabilized by its contact with the earth, had turned into a long line of black. It was a column of falling water, and the two clouds, which had joined, seemed to be discharging their contents down a hole. They were sucked into the vortex, now turned an inky black, and their millions of tons of water were precipitated upon one spot, while all about the ground was left dry. Wunpost knew what was happening, for he had seen it once before, and as he watched the rain descend he imagined the spot where it fell and the wreck which would follow its flood. For the Panamints are set on edge and shed rain like a roof, the water all flowing off at once; and when they strike a canyon, after rushing down the converging gulches, there is nothing that can withstand their violence. Every canyon in the range, and in the Funeral Range beyond, and in Tin Mountain and the Grapevines to the north--every one of them had been swept by the floods from the heights and ripped out as clean as a sand-wash. And this waterspout, which had turned into a mighty cloudburst, would sweep one of them clean again. The question was--which one? A breeze, rising suddenly, came up from the Sink and was sucked into the vortex above; the black line of the downfall turned lead-color and broadened out until it merged into the clouds above; and at last, as Wunpost lingered, the storm disappeared and the canyon took on the hush of heavy waiting. The sun blazed out as before, the fig-leaves hung down wilted; but the humidity was gone and the dry, oven-heat almost created the illusion of coolness. "Well, I'm going," announced Wunpost, for the third or fourth time. "She must have come down away north." "No--wait!" protested Billy, "why are you always in such a hurry? And perhaps the flood hasn't come yet." "It'd be here," he answered, "been an hour, by my watch; and believe me, that old boy would be coming some. Excuse _me_, if it should hit into one end of a box canyon while I was coming up the other. My friends could omit the flowers." "Well, why not stay, then?" she pouted anxiously; "you know Mother didn't mean anything. And perhaps Father will be down, to see if there was any damage done, and we could catch him first and explain." "No explaining for me!" returned Wunpost, beginning to pack; "you can tell them whatever you want. And if your folks are too religious to use my old road maybe the Lord will send a cloudburst and destroy it. That's the way He always did in them old Bible stories----" "You oughten to talk that way!" warned Wilhelmina soberly, "and besides, that's what made Mother angry. She isn't feeling well, and when you spoke slightingly of Divine Providence----"