Gradually Slone worked down and away from the bulging rim-wall. It
was hard, rough work, and risky because it could not be accomplished slowly.
Brush and rocks, loose shale and weathered slope, long, dusty inclines of
yellow earth, and jumbles of stone--these made bad going for miles of slow,
zigzag trail down out of the cedars. Then the trail entered what appeared to
be a ravine.
That ravine became a canyon. At its head it was a dry wash, full of gravel and
rocks. It began to cut deep into the bowels of the earth. It shut out sight of
the surrounding walls and peaks. Water appeared from under a cliff and,
augmented by other springs, became a brook. Hot, dry, and barren at its
beginning, this cleft became cool and shady and luxuriant with grass and
flowers and amber moss with silver blossoms. The rocks had changed color from
yellow to deep red. Four hours of turning and twisting, endlessly down and
down, over boulders and banks and every conceivable roughness of earth and
rock, finished the pack-mustang; and Slone mercifully left him in a long reach
of canyon where grass and water never failed.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127