purple clouds. By infinitesimal degrees the dark cloud-line

merged upward into the golden-red haze of the afterglow of
sunset. A shadow lengthened from under the western wall across

the valley. As straight and rigid as steel rose the delicate
spear-pointed silver spruces; the aspen leaves, by nature pendant

and quivering, hung limp and heavy; no slender blade of grass
moved. A gentle splashing of water came from the ravine. Then

again from out of the west sounded the low, dull, and rumbling
roll of thunder.

A wave, a ripple of light, a trembling and turning of the aspen
leaves, like the approach of a breeze on the water, crossed the

valley from the west; and the lull and the deadlystillness and
the sultry air passed away on a cool wind.

The night bird of the canyon, with clear and melancholy notes
announced the twilight. And from all along the cliffs rose the

faint murmur and moan and mourn of the wind singing in the caves.
The bank of clouds now swept hugely out of the western sky. Its

front was purple and black, with gray between, a bulging,
mushrooming, vast thing instinct with storm. It had a dark,

angry, threatening aspect. As if all the power of the winds were
pushing and piling behind, it rolled ponderously across the sky.

A red flare burned out instantaneously, flashed from the west to
east, and died. Then from the deepest black of the purple cloud

burst a boom. It was like the bowling of a huge boulder along the
crags and ramparts, and seemed to roll on and fall into the

valley to bound and bang and boom from cliff to cliff.
"Oh!" cried Bess, with her hands over her ears. "What did I tell

you?"
"Why, Bess, be reasonable!" said Venters.

"I'm a coward."
"Not quite that, I hope. It's strange you're afraid. I love a

storm."
"I tell you a storm down in these canyons is an awful thing. I

know Oldring hated storms. His men were afraid of them. There was
one who went deaf in a bad storm, and never could hear again."

"Maybe I've lots to learn, Bess. I'll lose my guess if this storm
isn't bad enough. We're going to have heavy wind first, then

lightning and thunder, then the rain. Let's stay out as long as
we can."

The tips of the cottonwoods and the oaks waved to the east, and
the rings of aspens along the terraces twinkled their myriad of

bright faces in fleet and glancing gleam. A low roar rose from
the leaves of the forest, and the spruces swished in the rising

wind. It came in gusts, with light breezes between. As it
increased in strength the lulls shortened in length till there

was a strong and steady blow all the time, and violent puffs at
intervals, and sudden whirling currents. The clouds spread over

the valley, rolling swiftly and low, and twilight faded into a
sweeping darkness. Then the singing of the wind in the caves

drowned the swift roar of rustling leaves; then the song swelled
to a mourning, moaning wail; then with the gathering power of the

wind the wail changed to a shriek. Steadily the wind strengthened
and constantly the strange sound changed.

The last bit of blue sky yielded to the on-sweep of clouds. Like
angry surf the pale gleams of gray, amid the purple of that

scudding front, swept beyond the eastern rampart of the valley.
The purple deepened to black. Broad sheets of lightning flared

over the western wall. There were not yet any ropes or zigzag
streaks darting down through the gathering darkness. The storm

center was still beyond Surprise Valley.
"Listen!...Listen!" cried Bess, with her lips close to Venters's

ear. "You'll hear Oldring's knell!"
"What's that?"

"Oldring's knell. When the wind blows a gale in the caves it
makes what the rustlers call Oldring's knell. They believe it

bodes his death. I think he believes so, too. It's not like any
sound on earth....It's beginning. Listen!"

The gale swooped down with a hollow unearthly howl. It yelled and
pealed and shrilled and shrieked. It was made up of a thousand

piercing cries. It was a rising and a moving sound. Beginning at
the western break of the valley, it rushed along each gigantic

cliff, whistling into the caves and cracks, to mount in power, to
bellow a blast through the great stone bridge. Gone, as into an

engulfing roar of surging waters, it seemed to shoot back and
begin all over again.

It was only wind, thought Venters. Here sped and shrieked the
sculptor that carved out the wonderful caves in the cliffs. It

was only a gale, but as Venters listened, as his ears became
accustomed to the fury and strife, out of it all or through it or

above it pealed low and perfectly clear and persistently uniform
a strange sound that had no counterpart in all the sounds of the

elements. It was not of earth or of life. It was the grief and
agony of the gale. A knell of all upon which it blew!

Black night enfolded the valley. Venters could not see his
companion, and knew of her presence only through the tightening

hold of her hand on his arm. He felt the dogs huddle closer to
him. Suddenly the dense, black vault overhead split asunder to a

blue-white, dazzling streak of lightning. The whole valley lay
vividly clear and luminously bright in his sight. Upreared, vast

and magnificent, the stone bridge glimmered like some grand god
of storm in the lightning's fire. Then all flashed black

again--blacker than pitch--a thick, impenetrable coal-blackness.
And there came a ripping, crashing report. Instantly an echo

resounded with clapping crash. The initial report was nothing to
the echo. It was a terrible, living, reverberating, detonating

crash. The wall threw the sound across, and could have made no
greater roar if it had slipped in avalanche. From cliff to cliff

the echo went in crashing retort and banged in lessening power,
and boomed in thinner volume, and clapped weaker and weaker till

a final clap could not reach across the waiting cliff.
In the pitchy darkness Venters led Bess, and, groping his way, by

feel of hand found the entrance to her cave and lifted her up. On
the instant a blinding flash of lightning illumined the cave and

all about him. He saw Bess's face white now with dark, frightened
eyes. He saw the dogs leap up, and he followed suit. The golden

glare vanished; all was black; then came the splitting crack and
the infernal din of echoes.

Bess shrank closer to him and closer, found his hands, and
pressed them tightly over her ears, and dropped her face upon his

shoulder, and hid her eyes.
Then the storm burst with a succession of ropes and streaks and

shafts of lightning, playing continuously, filling the valley
with a broken radiance; and the cracking shots followed each

other swiftly till the echoes blended in one fearful, deafening
crash.

Venters looked out upon the beautiful valley--beautiful now as
never before--mystic in its transparent, luminous gloom, weird in

the quivering, golden haze of lightning. The dark spruces were
tipped with glimmering lights; the aspens bent low in the winds,

as waves in a tempest at sea; the forest of oaks tossed wildly
and shone with gleams of fire. Across the valley the huge cavern

of the cliff-dwellers yawned in the glare, every little black
window as clear as at noonday; but the night and the storm added

to their tragedy. Flung arching to the black clouds, the great
stone bridge seemed to bear the brunt of the storm. It caught the

full fury of the rushing wind. It lifted its noble crown to meet
the lightnings. Venters thought of the eagles and their lofty