He started for the door and Mrs. Campbell let him go, for the revelation had left her thunderstruck. 162Never for a moment had she doubted that the sterling integrity of her husband had brought a special dispensation of Providence, and while her faith in Divine Providence was by no means shaken, she did begin to doubt the miracle. Perhaps, after all, this loud and boastful Wunpost had been more than an instrument of Providence–he might, in fact, have been a kindly but misguided friend, who had shaped his vengeance to serve their special needs. For he knew they needed the road and, since he could salt a crevice anywhere, he had located his mine up their canyon. And then Eells had jumped the mine and built the road, and─Well, really, after all, it was no more than right to go out and thank him for his kindness. He was wrong, of course, and led astray by angry passions; but Wilhelmina and he were friends and─She rose up and hurried out after him.
The blazing light in the heavens almost blinded her sight as she stepped out into the sun; and high up above the peaks, like cones of burnished metal, she saw two thundercaps, turning black at the base and mounting on the superheated air. There was the hush in the air which she had learned to associate with an explosion such as was about to take place, and she looked back anxiously, for her husband was up the canyon and the downpour might strike above Panamint. It was clouds such as these that had come together before to form the cloudburst which had isolated their mine, and though they now appeared daily she could never escape the fear that 163once more they would send down their floods. Every day they struck somewhere, and one more bone-dry canyon ran bank-high and spewed its refuse across the plain, and each time she had the feeling that their sins might be punished by another visitation from on high. But she only glanced back once, for Wunpost was packing and Billy was looking on hopelessly.
“Oh, Mr. Calhoun!” she called, “please don’t go up the canyon now–there’s a cloudburst forming above the peaks.”
“I’ll make it,” he grumbled, cocking his eye at the clouds–and then he stopped and looked again. “There went lightning,” he said; “that’s a mighty bad sign–they’re stabbing out towards each other.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’d better stay,” she went on apologetically, “and please don’t think you’re not welcome. But oh! this heat is terrible–I’ll have to go back–but Billy will stop and help you.”
She raised her sunshade as if she were fleeing from a rain-storm and hastened back out of the sun; and Wunpost, after a minute of careful scrutiny, unpacked and squatted down in the shade.
“They’re moving together,” he said to Billy, “and see that lightning reaching out? This is going to bust the world open, somewhere. That’s no cloudburst that’s shaping up, it’s a regular old waterspout; I know by the way she acts.”
He settled back on his heels to await the outcome, and as the thunder began to roll he turned to his companion and shook his head in ominous silence. 164There were but two clouds in the sky, all the rest was blazing light; and these two clouds were moving slowly together, or rather, towards a common center. One came on from the southeast, the other from the west, and some invisible force seemed to be drawing them towards the peaks which marked the summit of the Panamints. The play of the lightning became almost constant, the rumbling rose to a tumult; and then, as if caught by resistless hands, the two clouds rushed together. There was a flash of white light, a sudden blackening of the mass, and as Wunpost leapt up shouting a writhing funnel reached down as if feeling for the palpitating earth.
“There she goes!” he cried; “it’s a waterspout, all right–but it ain’t going to land near here.”
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.