Search e-Books

The slope was one great talus, a jumble of weathered rock,
fallen from what appeared a mountain of red and yellow wall. Here the heat of
the sun fell upon him like fire. The rocks were so hot Slone could not touch
them with bare hand. The close of the afternoon was approaching, and this
slope was interminably long. Still, it was not steep, and the trail was good.
At last from the height of slope Wildfire appeared, looking back and down.
Then he was gone. Slone plodded upward. Long before he reached that summit be
heard the dull rumble of the river. It grew to be a roar, yet it seemed
distant. Would the great desert river stop Wildfire in his flight? Slone
doubted it. He surmounted the ridge, to find the canyon opening in a
tremendous gap, and to see down, far down, a glittering, sun-blasted slope
merging into a deep, black gulch where a red river swept and chafed and
roared.
Somehow the river was what he had expected to see. A force that had cut and
ground this canyon could have been nothing but a river like that.


Pages:
115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139