He strode down to the water and, sitting upon the stone he had occupied so often, he listened.  He turned his ear up-stream, then down-stream, and to the side, and again up-stream and listened.

The river seemed the same.

It was slow, heavy, listless, eddying, lingering, moving—­the same apparently as for days past.  It splashed very softly and murmured low and gurgled faintly.  It gave forth fitful little swishes and musical tinkles and lapping sounds.  It was flowing water, yet the proof was there of tardiness.  Now it was almost still, and then again it moved on.  It was a river of mystery telling a lie with its low music.  As Bostil listened all those soft, watery sounds merged into what seemed a moaning, and that moaning held a roar so low as to be only distinguishable to the ear trained by years.

No—­the river was not the same.  For the voice of its soft moaning showed to Bostil its meaning.  It called from the far north—­the north of great ice-clad peaks beginning to glisten under the nearing sun; of vast snow-filled canyons dripping and melting; of the crystal brooks suddenly colored and roiled and filled bank-full along the mountain meadows; of many brooks plunging down and down, rolling the rocks, to pour their volume into the growing turbid streams on the slopes.  It was the voice of all that widely separated water spilled suddenly with magical power into the desert river to make it a mighty, thundering torrent, red and defiled, terrible in its increasing onslaught into the canyon, deep, ponderous, but swift—­the Colorado in flood.

And as Bostil heard that voice he trembled.  What was the thing he meant to do?  A thousand thoughts assailed him in answer and none were clear.  A chill passed over him.  Suddenly he felt that the cold stole up from his feet.  They were both in the water.  He pulled them out and, bending down, watched the dim, dark line of water.  It moved up and up, inch by inch, swiftly.  The river was on the rise!

Bostil leaped up.  He seemed possessed of devils.  A rippling hot gash of blood fired his every vein and tremor after tremor shook him.

“By G—–­d!  I had it right—­she’s risin’!” he exclaimed, hoarsely.

He stared in fascinated certainty at the river.  All about it and pertaining to it had changed.  The murmur and moan changed to a low, sullen roar.  The music was gone.  The current chafed at its rock-bound confines.  Here was an uneasy, tormented, driven river!  The light from the stars shone on dark, glancing, restless waters, uneven and strange.  And while Bostil watched, whether it was a short time or long, the remorseless, destructive nature of the river showed itself.

Bostil began to pace the sands.  He thought of those beautiful race-horses across the river.

“It’s not too late!” he muttered.  “I can get the boat over an’ back—­yet!”

He knew that on the morrow the Colorado in flood would bar those horses, imprison them in a barren canyon, shut them in to starve.