"Well, I'm going," he said again, "before I begin to quarrel with _you_. But, oh say, I want to get that dog." "Oh, it's too hot!" she protested, "let him stay under the house. He and Red are sleeping there together." "No, I need him," he grumbled, "liable to be bushwhacked now, any time; and I want a dog to guard camp at night." He started towards the house, still looking up the canyon, and at the gate he stopped dead and listened. "What's that?" he asked, and glanced about wildly, but Billy only shook her head. "I don't hear anything," she replied, turning listlessly away, "but I wish you wouldn't go." "Well, maybe I won't," he answered grimly, "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 piñon-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.