A Cloud-Burst on the Desert [pp. 138-143]

A CLOUD-BURST ON THE DESERT.
like the passing of a distant hurricane
over the country, coming from the eastward, broke on our ears. "We must
hurry, for the creek is going to rise - I
9aw a black cloud up toward the head of
the creek at daylight, and have been
fearing a freshet all the morning," said
Thompson; and we urged our horses
into a rapid trot to reach the crossing.
Suddenly the roar increased to a volume
like distant thunder, and the Mexican,
throwing up his hand, with the exclamation, "Mother of God, protect us!"
wheeled his horse for the mesa on the
north side of the stream, and dashed
away at full gallop. One glance up the
stream was enough -I shall never forget the sight! Around the bend ahead,
and perhaps half a mile distant, was coming a solid wall of water at least ten feet
in height, filling the whole valley of the
Fork, and bearing every thing before it.
We ran our horses at their utmost speed
for the mesa;'and just as we reached its
foot, the water, driven out of the bed of
the creek by the pressure of the coming
flood, ran around us. We reached the
top of the mesa, some thirty feet in height,
and looked down upon a scene which
beggars tongue and pen. The valley of
the Fork along which we had ridden but
a moment before dry - shod, was filled
with a roaring flood from bank to bank.
The purling stream, which a man could
ford on foot ten minutes before, was now
fully a thousand yards in width, from ten
to thirty feet in depth, and with a current
with which no race-horse could compete
for speed. The whole face of the flood
was covered with drift-wood; great cotton-woods were lifted out of the earth
and borne away like straws: nothing
could stand before the tremendous rush
of waters. The air was filled with the
rank odor of alkali and fresh earth carried down by the raging'waters; and the
surface of the flood was covered with a
cream-like foam, showing how violent
had been the action of the torrent above.
Near where we reached the mesa, a party of Mexicans were at work cultivating
a small ranch, and as the flood approached them, attempted to run for the heights.
A minute later, we saw them swimming
for their lives in the edge of the torrent,
while their house was going down the
Fork bodily with the speed of a high-*
pressure steamboat. Their crops were
already washed away, and they were reduced to beggary, even before they touched the shore and were assured of their
lives. The deafening roar of the surging waters made it almost impossible for
us to make ourselves heard by each
other, even when a few feet apart; and
words were idle even if they could be
heard. We lay an hour in silence on the
mesa, gazing at the wild waste of waters
before us, and then turned our horses'
heads for the black hills to the northward, knowing full well that we could
not cross the flood with a steamboat, if
we had one, and that we must seek a new
road to the place we had left in the
morning. Hour after hour we toiled on,
dragging our almost worn-out horses up
and down shelving hill- sides, and over
loose, jagged rocks, which cut our boots
to pieces and tore the shoes from the
feet of the animals; and, just as night
set in, we arrived once more at Aubrey,
utterly exhausted with our fruitless day's
labor.
All that long, dreary night we lay in
our blankets in our friend's hospitable
cabin, and listened to the roar of the
waters and the splashing of trees in the
flood, as the banks on the opposite side
of the stream were undermined and*
went crashing down, to be swallowed up
in the hungry torrent. Next morning
we found that the flood, pouring into the
Colorado from Williams Fork, had set
back the waters of the river like a dam,
and raised it bankful for miles to the
northward.
That day the Fork fell rapidly, and
next morning we determined to once
[AUGUST,
I42