ned, a silence not of
serene plain or mountain fastness, but shut in, compressed, strange, and
breathless. Safe from the storms of the elements as well as of the world
was this Garden of Eschtah.

Naab had put Hare to bed on the unroofed porch of a log house, but
routed him out early, and when Hare lifted the blankets a shower of
cotton-blossoms drifted away like snow. A grove of gray-barked trees
spread green canopy overhead, and through the intricate web shone
crimson walls, soaring with resistless onsweep up and up to shut out all
but a blue lake of sky.

"I want you to see the Navajos cross the river," said Naab.

Hare accompanied him out through the grove to a road that flanked the
first rise of the red wall; they followed this for half a mile, and
turning a corner came into an unobstructed view. A roar of rushing
waters had prepared Hare, but the river that he saw appalled him. It
was red and swift; it slid onward like an enormous slippery snake; its
constricted head raised a crest of leaping waves, and disappeared in a
dark chasm, whence came a bellow and boom.

"That opening where she jumps off is the head of the Grand Canyon," said
Naab. "It's five hundred feet deep there, and thirty miles below it's
five thousand. Oh, once in, she tears in a hurry! Come, we turn up the
bank here."

Hare could find no speech, and he felt immeasurably small. All that he
had seen in reaching this isolated spot was dwarfed in comparison. This
"Crossing of the Fathers," as Naab called it, was the gateway of the
desert. This roar of turbulent waters was the sinister monotone of the
mighty desert symphony of great depths, great heights, great reaches.

On a sandy strip of bank the Navajos had halted. This was as far as they
could go, for above the wall jutted out into the river. From here the
head of the Canyon was not visible, and the roar of the rapids was
accordingly lessened in volume. But even in this smooth water the river
spoke a warning.

"The Navajos go in here and swim their mustangs across to that sand
bar," explained Naab. "The current helps when she's high, and there's a
three-foot raise on now."

"I can't believe it possible. What danger they must run--those little
mustangs!" exclaimed Hare.

"Danger? Yes, I suppose so," replied Naab, as if it were a new idea. "My
lad, the Mormons crossed here by the hundreds. Many were drowned. This
trail and crossing were unknown except to Indians before the Mormon
exodus.