ear.

Just as they were entering the Gorge, Clifford turned and looked back
towards the camp. Out across the Red Rock elevation he pointed out three
black specks. Looking at them through the mission field glass, a former
gift from Mr. Douglas, he announced them to be probably three wagons
with tourists from Canyon Diablo bound for the snake dance.

"May be your friend from Pittsburgh, Van Shaw, is in that outfit," he
said to Bauer.

Bauer did not reply. He hoped Van Shaw would not meet Walter or any of
their party. There was no reason why he should, but every time he
thought of Van Shaw he felt uncomfortable, something in him rose up
nearest to a feeling of hate and disgust he had ever known.

Clifford faced around and resumed the driving. He noted as he turned
into the opening that Peshlekietsetti had stopped just outside to strap
on one of the water barrels more securely, but seeing that he did not
ask for any help he drove on into the Gorge.

The Gorge was weirdly irregular and the windings of the road were so
many that very soon the wagons were all separated from view of one
another.

In this volcanic land one could not account for the fantastic and even
monstrous shapes of cliff and ledge and overhanging rock masses without
calling up some gigantic upheaval of all nature's vast play of forces;
earthquakes, fire, volcano, flood, wind, sand spouts of enormous height
and velocity, one after the other all these elemental storms must have
rocked and heaved and rent and tortured the earth and after all had
passed by, the hurricane of volcanic fire and missiles must have
scattered the debris of high mountains twisted into lumps of matter,
varying in size from a sky scraper to a comma.

It began and ended abruptly, as if in a freak of the upheaval a tornado
had picked up the end of a canyon somewhere, turned it over several times
in transit and finally dropped it bottom side up on the desert, breaking
it open when it fell and letting the fragments bump around like the
pounded rock in a concrete mixer.

In among these boulders Elijah Clifford guided the team, exercising all
his skill, for one of the horses was partly mustang, full of unused
energy, and Mr. Masters had chosen the trip to Oraibi to give the animal
some necessary training, trusting in Clifford's love of horses and his
special characteristic of carefulness to avoid any accidents. And all
would have gone well if the unforeseen and unavoidable had not oc