While I bent over to shake my holster, the storm passed as suddenly as it had come.

When I looked up, there were the pines, like pillars of Parian marble, and a white shadow, a vanishing cloud fled, with receding roar, on the wings of the wind.

Fast on this retreat burst the warm, bright sun.
I faced my course, and was delighted to see, through an opening where the ravine cut out of the forest, the red-tipped peaks of the canyon, and the vaulted dome I had named St.Marks.As I started, a new and unexpected after-feature of the storm began to manifest itself.

The sun being warm, even to melt the snow, and under the trees a heavy rain fell, and in the glades and hollows a fine mist blew.

Exquisite rainbows hung from white-tipped branches and curved over the hollows.
Glistening patches of snow fell from the pines, and broke the showers.
In a quarter of an hour, I rode out of the forest to the rim wall on dry ground.