ne, and bulge on bulge rose the bold benches, and on up the
unscalable outcroppings of rock, like colossal ribs of the earth, on and
up the steep slopes to where their density of blue black color began to
thin out with streaks of white, and thence upward to the last noble
height, where the cold pure snow gleamed against the sky.

I descended into this yellow maze, this world of gullies and ridges
where I found it difficult to keep from getting lost. I did lose my
bearings, but as my boots made deep imprints in the soft clay I knew it
would be easy to back-track my trail. After a while this labyrinthine
series of channels and dunes opened into a wide space enclosed on three
sides by denuded slopes, mostly yellow. These slopes were smooth,
graceful, symmetrical, with tiny tracery of erosion, and each appeared
to retain its own color, yellow or cinnamon or mauve. But they were
always dominated by a higher one of a different color. And this mystic
region sloped and slanted to a great amphitheater that was walled on the
opposite side by a mountain of bare earth, of every hue, and of a
thousand ribbed and scalloped surfaces. At its base the golds and
russets and yellows were strongest, but ascending its slopes were
changing colors--a dark beautiful mouse color on one side and a strange
pearly cream on the other. Between these great corners of the curve
climbed ridges of gray and heliotrope and amber, to meet wonderful veins
of green--green as the sea in sunlight--and tracery of white--and on the
bold face of this amphitheater, high up, stood out a zigzag belt of dull
red, the stain of which had run down to tinge the other hues. Above all
this wondrous coloration upheaved the bare breast of the mountain,
growing darker with earthy browns, up to the gray old rock ramparts.

This place affected me so strangely, so irresistibly that I remained
there a long time. Something terrible had happened there to men. I felt
that. Something tragic was going on right then--the wearing down, the
devastation of the old earth. How plainly that could be seen!
Geologically it was more remarkable to me than the Grand Canyon. But it
was the appalling meaning, the absolutely indescribable beauty that
overcame me. I thought of those who had been inspiration to me in my
work, and I suffered a pang that they could not be there to see and feel
with me.

On my way out of this amphitheater a hard wind swooped down over the
slopes, tearing up the colored