seeming able for anything, pouring life-giving, wonder-working floods from
its alabaster fountains, as if some sky-lake had broken. To every gulch
and gorge on its favorite ground is given a passionate torrent, roaring,
replying to the rejoicing lightning--stones, tons in weight, hurrying away
as if frightened, showing something of the way Grand Cañon work is done.
Most of the fertile summer clouds of the cañon are of this sort, massive,
swelling cumuli, growing rapidly, displaying delicious tones of purple and
gray in the hollows of their sun-beaten bosses, showering favored areas
of the heated landscape, and vanishing in an hour or two. Some, busy and
thoughtful-looking, glide with beautiful motion along the middle of the
cañon in flocks, turning aside here and there, lingering as if studying
the needs of particular spots, exploring side-cañons, peering into hollows
like birds seeking nest-places, or hovering aloft on outspread wings. They
scan all the red wilderness, dispensing their blessings of cool shadows
and rain where the need is the greatest, refreshing the rocks, their
offspring as well as the vegetation, continuing their sculpture, deepening
gorges and sharpening peaks. Sometimes, blending all together, they weave
a ceiling from rim to rim, perhaps opening a window here and there for
sunshine to stream through, suddenly lighting some palace or temple and
making it flare in the rain as if on fire.

Sometimes, as one sits gazing from a high, jutting promontory, the sky
all clear, showing not the slightest wisp or penciling, a bright band of
cumuli will appear suddenly, coming up the cañon in single file, as if
tracing a well-known trail, passing in review, each in turn darting its
lances and dropping its shower, making a row of little vertical rivers
in the air above the big brown one. Others seem to grow from mere points,
and fly high above the cañon, yet following its course for a long time,
noiseless, as if hunting, then suddenly darting lightning at unseen marks,
and hurrying on. Or they loiter here and there as if idle, like laborers