ee the
Canyon when we woke up this morning."

A quizzical smile twitched the corners of Dad's mouth. Tad saw that
the guide had something of a surprise for them. The lad asked no
further questions.

Breakfast finished, the boys cleared away the dishes, packing everything
as if for a continuation of their journey, which they fully expected
to make.

A slight rise of ground lay a few rods ahead of them. Tad started
to stroll that way. He halted as a party of men and women were seen
approaching from the direction of El Tovar, where the hotel was located.

"Now, gentlemen, you may walk along," nodded the guide, smiling broadly.

"Which way?" asked the Professor.

"Follow the crowd you see there."

They saw the party step up to the rise, then a woman's scream smote their
ears. Tad, thinking something had occurred, dashed forward.

He reached the level plateau on the rise, where his companions saw him
halt suddenly, throwing both arms above his head.

The boys started on a run, followed by the professor, who by this time
was a little excited.

Then all at once the glorious panorama burst upon them. There at their
very feet lay the Grand Canyon. Below them lay the wonder of the world,
and more than five thousand feet down, like a slender silver thread,
rippled the Colorado.

The first sight of the Canyon affects different persons differently. It
overwhelmed the Pony Rider Boys, leaving them speechless. They shrank
back as they gazed into the awful chasm at their feet and into which
they might have plunged had the hour been earlier, for it had burst
upon them almost with the suddenness of the crack of a rifle.

They had thought to see mountains. There were none. What they saw was
really a break in the level plateau. From where they stood they looked
almost straight down into the abyss for something more than a mile.
Gazing straight ahead they saw to the other side of the chasm twelve
miles away. To the right and to the left their gaze reached more than
twenty miles in each direction.

This great space was filled with gigantic architectural constructions,
with amphitheaters, gorges, precipices, walls of masonry, fortresses,
terraced up to the level of the eyes, temples, mountain high, all
brilliant with horizontal lines of color---streaks of hues from a few
feet to a thousand feet in width, mottled here and there with all the
colors of the rainbow.

Such coloring, such harmony of tints the Pony Rid