g opulence of color. Pale
gold along the farther rim, with pink and amber, blue and gray, and
heliotrope and rose--all blending softly, tone on tone. Deeper, the
heart of every rift and chasm that flows into the one stupendous
mother-rift was full of purple shadows. Not the thin lavender of the
upper world where we must live, but tensely, richly regal, beyond words
to paint; with silvery mists above, soft, filmy veils that draped the
jutting rocks and rounded each harsh edge, melting pink to rose and gray
to violet. Eternal silence brooded over all this symbol, wrought in
visible form, of His Almightiness, to whom a thousand years are as a
day, and in the hollow of whose hand He holds the universe. Measureless,
motionless, voiceless, it seemed as if all the canons of all the
mountains of our great contienent might have given to it here
their awful depth and height and rugged strength; their picturesqueness,
color, graceful outlines, dizzy steeps and awe-inspiring lengths and
breadths. And fusing all these into itself, height on height, and
breadth on breadth, entrancing charm on charm, with all the hues that
the Great Alchemist can throw from His vast prism, it seemed to say:

"'Twas only in a vision that St. John saw the four-square city whose
twelve gates are each a single pearl! whose walls are builded on
foundation stones of jasper, sapphire, and chalcedony, emerald and
topaz, chrysolite and amethyst; whose streets are of pure gold, like
unto clear glass; whose light is ever like unto a stone most precious.

"To you who may not dream the vision beautiful, the Mighty Maker of all
things sublime has given me a token here in finite stone and earthly
coloring of that undreamed sublimity of all things omnipotent."

My companion and I sat on our horses speechless, gazing down at this
overwhelming marvel below us. We forgot ourselves, each other, our
companions of the journey, its purpose, Beverly, and his enemy Santan,
the desert, the brown plains, green prairies, rivers, mountains, the
earth itself, as we stood there in the shadow of the Infinite.

At last we turned and looked into each other's eyes for one long moment.
In its space we read the old, old story through, and a great,
up-leaping joy illumined our faces. God, who had let us know each
other, had let us stand by _this_ to feel the barrier of
misunderstanding fall away.

* * * * *

A sound of horses' hoofs on the rocky slope