. Then Lucy became conscious that
of late he had softened.

"You'll have to come," he said. "There's no water on this side, short
of thet canyon-bed. An' acrost there's water close under the wall."

So they set out into the forest. And Lucy found that after all she
could go on. The horses walked and on the soft, springy ground did not
jar her. Deer and wild turkey abounded there and showed little alarm at
sight of the travelers. And before long Lucy felt that she would become
intoxicated by the dry odor. It was so strong, so thick, so
penetrating. Yet, though she felt she would reel under its influence,
it revived her.

The afternoon passed; the sun set off through the pines, a
black-streaked, golden flare; twilight shortly changed to night. The
trees looked spectral in the gloom, and the forest appeared to grow
thicker. Wolves murmured, and there were wild cries of cat and owl.
Lucy fell asleep on her horse. At last, sometime late in the night,
when Creech lifted her from the saddle and laid her down, she stretched
out on the soft mat of pine needles and knew no more.

She did not awaken until the afternoon of the next day. The site where
Creech had made his final camp overlooked the wildest of all that wild
upland country. The pines had scattered and trooped around a beautiful
park of grass that ended abruptly upon bare rock. Yellow crags towered
above the rim, and under them a yawning narrow gorge, overshadowed from
above, blue in its depths, split the end of the great plateau and
opened out sheer into the head of the canyon, which, according to
Creech, stretched away through that wilderness of red stone and green
clefts. When Lucy's fascinated gaze looked afar she was stunned at the
vast, billowy, bare surfaces. Every green cleft was a short canyon
running parallel with this central and longer one. The dips and breaks
showed how all these canyons were connected. They led the gaze away,
descending gradually to the dim purple of distance--the bare, rolling
desert upland.

Lucy did nothing but gaze. She was unable to walk or eat that day.
Creech hung around her with a remorse he apparently felt, yet could not
put into words.

"Do you expect Joel to come up this big canyon?"

"I reckon I do--some day," replied Creech. "An' I wish he'd hurry."

"Does he know the way?"

"Nope. But he's good at findin' places. An' I told him to stick to the
main canyon. Would you believe you could ride offer this rim, straight