All went well. The wind was right, and the huge kites, bomb-laden, climbed into the sky like vultures. The electric wires were in order, and when at last the buttons were touched and the explosion came, it seemed as if the very vaults of heaven were riven. It was a great success. Gray, elated and hopeful, but not fully assured, stood and watched and waited.
He did not have to wait long. Not far to the north in the hard blue sky suddenly appeared a little dab of woolly white. Another showed in the east. They showed all about, and grew and grew in size until they became great, over-toppling, blending mountains, a new and mysterious world against the sky. Then came a darkening of the mass. The cumulus was changing to the nimbus. Then came a distant rumble, and, preceding another, a great blaze of lightning went across the zenith. To those in the region the world darkened. A mountain thunderstorm was on.
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.
In the Cougarville Screamer of the following morning appeared a graphic account of the great exploit of "Professor" Gray, of the Department of Agriculture, who on the preceding day had, after taking his force into the foothills and utilizing the means at his command, attained the greatest rainfall of the season. Of course it was to be regretted that a picnic including the élite of Cougarville was in progress beside the creek of the canyon alongside which Professor Gray operated, but scientists could not be expected to know anything of social functions, and all was for the best. One of the mules and one of the burros had been recovered. It was a great day for Cougarville. "Now," concluded the account, "since the means for irrigation are assured, the valleys about our promising city will bloom eternally fresh, and no one doubts the location of the metropolis of the region."
As for Gray, he met Miss Fleming on the day succeeding, and if withering glances ever really withered anything, he would have been as a dry leaf. But he did not wither. He went East, and is now connected with the Pennsylvania Broad Gauge. Miss Fleming married Mr. Muggles, and I understand the store is doing only moderately well. What puzzles me is that after Gray's triumph up the canyon on this occasion, the United States Government should have abandoned the rain-making experiments. The facts related in this very brief account are respectfully submitted to the consideration of the Department of Agriculture.
[WITHIN ONE LIFE'S SPAN]
A river flows through green prairies into a vast blue lake. There are log houses along the banks, and near the lake a more pretentious structure, also built of logs. Quaint as an old Dutch mill, with its overhanging second story, this fort of rude type answers its purpose well, for only Indians are likely to assail it, and Indians bring no artillery.