point the trail grew more zigzag, and
steeper, and shadier. As we got higher up the air grew cooler. I noted
a change in the timber. The trees grew larger, and other varieties
appeared. We crossed a roaring brook lined by thick, green brush, very
pleasant to the eye, and bronze-gold ferns that were beautiful. We
passed oaks all green and yellow, and maple trees, wonderfully colored
red and cerise. Then still higher up I espied some silver spruces,
most exquisite trees of the mountain forests.

During the latter half of the climb up to the rim I had to attend to
the business of riding and walking. The trail was rough, steep, and
long. Once Haught called my attention to a flat stone with a plain
trail made by a turtle in ages past when that sandstone was wet,
sedimentary deposit. By and bye we reached the last slopes up to the
mesa, green, with yellow crags and cliffs, and here and there blazing
maples to remind me again that autumn was at hand.

At last we surmounted the rim, from which I saw a scene that defied
words. It was different from any I had seen before. Black timber as
far as eye could see! Then I saw a vast bowl inclosed by dim mountain
ranges, with a rolling floor of forested ridges, and dark lines I knew
to be canyons. For wild, rugged beauty I had not seen its equal.

[Illustration: THE TONTO BASIN]

When the pack train reached the rim we rode on, and now through a
magnificent forest at eight thousand feet altitude. Big white and black
clouds obscured the sun. A thunder shower caught us. There was hail, and
the dry smell of dust, and a little cold rain. Romer would not put on
his slicker. Haught said the drought had been the worst he had seen in
twenty years there. Up in this odorous forestland I could not see where
there had been lack of rain. The forest appeared thick, grassy, gold and
yellow and green and brown. Thickets and swales of oaks and aspens were
gorgeous in their autumn hues. The silver spruces sent down long,
graceful branches that had to be brushed aside or stooped under as we
rode along. Big gray squirrels with white tails and tufted ears ran up
trees to perch on limbs and watch us go by; and other squirrels, much
smaller and darker gray, frisked and chattered and scolded at a great
rate.

[Illustration: LISTENING FOR THE HOUNDS]

We passed little depressions that ran down into ravines, and these,
Haught informed me, were the heads of canyons that sloped away from
the rim, deepening a