and, each the bed of a
stream. As we turned to the left and crossed the wildly-rolling hills,
and forded Clarke's Fork to camp by Dead Indian Creek, the novelty and
splendor of this almost unequalled view grew and grew. As I close my
eyes it comes before me as at the call of an enchanter. From the main
valley the outlook is down five grass-clad valleys dotted with trees and
here and there flashing with the bright reflection from some hurrying
stream. The mountains between rise from two to ten thousand feet, and
are singular for the contrasts they present. The most distant to the
right were black serrated battlements, looking as if their darkness were
vacant spaces in the blue sky beyond. The next hill was a mass of gray
limestone, and again, on the left, rose a tall peak of ochreous yellows,
sombre reds and grays. The hill above our camp was composed of red and
yellow rocks, fading below to gray debris, bounded beneath by a band of
grasses, and below this another stratum of tinted rock; and so down to
the plain. The side-view of this group showed it to be wildly distorted,
the strata lying at every angle, coming out against the distant
lava-peaks and the green slopes below them in a glory of tenderly-graded
colors.

It seems as if it should be easy to describe a landscape so peculiar,
and yet I feel that I fail utterly to convey any sense of the emotions
excited by the splendid sweep of each valley, by the black fierceness of
the lava-peaks thrown up in Nature's mood of fury, by the great
"orchestra of colors" of the limestone hills, and by a burning red
sunset, filling the spaces between the hills with hazy, ruddy gold,
and, when all was cold and dark, of a sudden flooding each grim
lava-battlement with the dim mysterious pink flush of the afterglow,
such as one may see at rare times in the Alps or the Tyrol. In crossing
the heads of these valleys, some day to be famous as one of the sights
of the world, we forded Clarke's Fork, the major, Jack and I being
ahead. We came out on the far side upon a bit of strand, above and
around which rose almost perpendicularly the eroded banks of the stream,
some fifteen feet high. While the guides broke down the bank to allow of
our horses climbing it, I was struck with a wonderful bit of water. To
my right this tall bank was perforated by numerous holes, out of which
flowed an immense volume of water. It bounded forth between the matted
roots and welled up below from the sand, and,