this phenomenon was the exceeding narrowness of
the canyon. It has been stated that directly opposite to where the boys
had halted it was scarcely a dozen feet wide, and there were places in
sight with the width still less, though most of it was greater. The ages
that it had taken this stream to erode such a bed for itself was beyond
imagination.

"Jack," said his companion, with that elasticity of spirits natural to
one of his years, "if you had pitched down there, how in the world could
I have pulled you up to the top again?"

"Why would you wish to do that?"

"Well, you would have been pretty well bruised and would have needed
help."

"Possibly; but I wonder whether there are many such pit-holes in this
part of the world. It resembles the fissures in the mountains of ice
which I have read that the Arctic explorers sometimes find."

However, since the youths were on one side of the canyon, naturally they
were seized with the belief that it was necessary immediately to place
themselves on the other side. Why it was so they would have found hard
to explain, but they were unanimous on the point; and, since there was
but the single method of crossing the chasm, they set out to find it.

"It looks narrower over there to the left," said Jack, turning in that
direction.

He did not have to go far when he paused, where the width was barely six
feet--not enough to afford much of a leap for sturdy lads of their
years.

"That's easy," added Jack, measuring it with his eye.

"You must remember one thing, Jack. There's something in the air of this
part of the world which makes a mile look no more than a few hundred
yards. Suppose that that other bank is fifty feet off!"

It was an alarming thought, and Jack recoiled as if again on the edge of
the brink. But he was quick to see the absurdity of the idea.

"If that is so, then the canyon must be several miles deep. But we would
better make sure."

It was easy to do this. Hunting around until a chip from one of the
boulders was found, Jack tossed it across the abyss. It fell as he
expected, proving that, wonderfully deceptive as is the atmosphere of
the West, it cannot mislead in instances like that which confronted
them.

"That makes it right. I am not afraid to make the leap; are you?"

"Not a bit; but wait."

Near them lay a stone, so large that it required their united strength
to move it. By hard work they rolled it to the edge of the canyon and
tumbled it o