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.