purple.

That evening was the try-out of our new chuck-box and chef. I had
supplied the men with their own outfit and supplies, to do with as they
liked, an arrangement I found to be most satisfactory. Takahashi was to
take care of R.C. and me. In less than half an hour from the time the
Jap lighted a fire he served the best supper I ever had in camp
anywhere. R.C. lauded him to the skies. And I began to think I could
unburden myself of my conviction.

I did not awaken to the old zest and thrill of the open. Something was
wrong with me. The sunset, the camp-fire, the dark clear night with its
trains of stars, the distant yelp of coyotes--these seemed less to me
than what I had hoped for. My feelings were locked round my discomfort
and pain.

About noon next day we rode out of the cedars into the open desert--a
rolling, level land covered with fine grass, and yellow daisies, Indian
paint brush, and a golden flowering weed. This luxuriance attested to
the copious and recent rains. They had been a boon to dry Arizona. No
sage showed or greasewood, and very few rocks. The sun burned hot. I
gazed out at the desert, and the cloud pageant in the sky, trying hard
to forget myself, and to see what I knew was there for me. Rolling
columnar white and cream clouds, majestic and beautiful, formed storms
off on the horizon. Sunset on the open desert that afternoon was
singularly characteristic of Arizona--purple and gold and red, with long
lanes of blue between the colored cloud banks.

We made camp at Meteor Crater, one of the many wonders of this
wonderland. It was a huge hole in the earth over five hundred feet deep,
said to have been made by a meteor burying itself there. Seen from the
outside the slope was gradual up to the edges, which were scalloped and
irregular; on the inside the walls were precipitous. Our camp was on the
windy desert, a long sweeping range of grass, sloping down, dotted with
cattle, with buttes and mountains in the distance. Most of my sensations
of the day partook of the nature of woe.

September seventeenth bade fair to be my worst day--at least I did not
see how any other could ever be so bad. Glaring hot sun--reflected heat
from I the bare road--dust and sand and wind! Particularly hard on me
were what the Arizonians called dust-devils, whirlwinds of sand. On and
off I walked a good many miles, the latter of which I hobbled. Don
Carlos did not know what to make of this. He eyed me, and nosed me, a