Sometimes, as the busy clouds drooped and condensed or dissolved to misty gauze, half of the Valley would be suddenly veiled, leaving here and there some lofty headland cut off from all visible connection with the walls, looming alone, dim, spectral, as if belonging to the sky--visitors, like the new falls, come to take part in the glorious festival.

Thus for two days and nights in measureless extravagance the storm went on, and mostly without spectators, at least of a terrestrial kind.

I saw nobody out--bird, bear, squirrel, or man.
Tourists had vanished months before, and the hotel people and laborers were out of sight, careful about getting cold, and satisfied with views from windows.

The bears, I suppose, were in their canyon-boulder dens, the squirrels in their knot-hole nests, the grouse in close fir groves, and the small singers in the Indian Canyon chaparral, trying to keep warm and dry.

Strange to say, I did not see even the water-ouzels, though they must have greatly enjoyed the storm.
This was the most sublime waterfall flood I ever saw--clouds, winds, rocks, waters, throbbing together as one.