othing happened to this person. He got down safe
and sound; it was a great pity, too.

By the Bright Angel Trail it is three hours on a mule to the plateau,
where there are green summery things growing even in midwinter, and
where the temperature is almost sultry; and it is an hour or so more to
the riverbed, down at the very bottom. When you finally arrive there and
look up you do not see how you ever got down, for the trail has
magically disappeared; and you feel morally sure you are never going to
get back. If your mule were not under you pensively craning his head
rearward in an effort to bite your leg off, you would almost be ready to
swear the whole thing was an optical illusion, a wondrous dream. Under
these circumstances it is not so strange that some travelers who have
been game enough until now suddenly weaken. Their nerves capsize and the
grit runs out of them like sand out of an overturned pail.

All over this part of Arizona they tell you the story of the lady from
the southern part of the state--she was a school teacher and the story
has become an epic--who went down Bright Angel one morning and did not
get back until two o'clock the following morning; and then she came
against her will in a litter borne by two tired guides, while two
others walked beside her and held her hands; and she was protesting at
every step that she positively could not and would not go another inch;
and she was as hysterical as a treeful of chickadees; her hat was lost,
and her glasses were gone, and her hair hung down her back, and
altogether she was a mournful sight to see.

Likewise the natives will tell you the tale of a man who made the trip
by crawling round the more sensational corners upon his hands and knees;
and when he got down he took one look up to where, a sheer mile above
him, the rim of the canyon showed, with the tall pine trees along its
edge looking like the hairs upon a caterpillar's back, and he announced
firmly that he wished he might choke if he stirred another step. Through
the miraculous indulgence of a merciful providence he was down, and that
was sufficient for him; he wasn't going to trifle with his luck. He
would stay down until he felt good and rested, and then he would return
to his home in dear old Altoona by some other route. He was very
positive about it. There were two guides along, both of them patient and
forbearing cowpunchers, and they argued with him. They pointed that
there was only one s