noon
The thin red clouds which hung above their pointed tops began to boil and move rapidly , weaving in and out like smoke . The swallows darted out of their rock houses as at a signal , and flew upward , toward the rim . Little brown birds began to chirp in the bushes along the watercourse down at the bottom of the ravine , where everything was still dusky and pale . At first the golden light seemed to hang like a wave upon the rim of the canyon ; the trees and bushes up there , which one scarcely noticed at noon , stood out magnified by the slanting rays . Long , thin streaks of light began to reach quiveringly down into the canyon . The red sun rose rapidly above the tops of the blazing pines , and its glow burst into the gulf , about the very doorstep on which Thea sat . It bored into the wet , dark underbrush .