A good storm-cloud full of lightning and rain on its way to its work on
a sunny desert day is a glorious object. Across the canon, opposite the
hotel, is a little tributary of the Colorado called Bright Angel Creek.
A fountain-cloud still better deserves the name "Angel of the Desert
Wells"--clad in bright plumage, carrying cool shade and living water to
countless animals and plants ready to perish, noble in form and gesture,
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 Canon work is done.
Most of the fertile summer clouds of the canon 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
canon in flocks, turning aside here and there, lingering as if studying
the needs of particular spots, exploring side-canons, peering into hollows
like birds seeking nest-places, or hovering aloft on outspread wings.
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