bent abruptly to the right;
a gulf fully two thousand feet deep was at his feet! It was the Great
Canyon.

At the first glance it seemed so narrow that a rifle-shot could have
crossed its tranquil depths; but a second look at the comparative size
of the trees on the opposite mountain convinced him of his error. A
nearer survey of the abyss also showed him that instead of its walls
being perpendicular they were made of successive ledges or terraces to
the valley below. Yet the air was so still, and the outlines so clearly
cut, that they might have been only the reflections of the mountains
around him cast upon the placid mirror of a lake. The spectacle arrested
him, as it arrested all men, by some occult power beyond the mere
attraction of beauty or magnitude; even the teamster never passed
it without the tribute of a stone or broken twig tossed into its
immeasurable profundity.

Reluctantly leaving the spot, the stranger turned with the trail that
now began to skirt its edge. This was no easy matter, as the undergrowth
was very thick, and the foliage dense to the perilous brink of the
precipice. He walked on, however, wondering why Bradley had chosen so
circuitous and dangerous a route to his house, which naturally would
be some distance back from the canyon. At the end of ten minutes'
struggling through the "brush," the trail became vague, and, to all
appearances, ended. Had he arrived? The thicket was as dense as before;
through the interstices of leaf and spray he could see the blue void of
the canyon at his side, and he even fancied that the foliage ahead of
him was more symmetrical and less irregular, and was touched here and
there with faint bits of color. To complete his utter mystification,
a woman's voice, very fresh, very youthful, and by no means unmusical,
rose apparently from the circumambient air. He looked hurriedly to the
right and left, and even hopelessly into the trees above him.

"Yes," said the voice, as if renewing a suspended conversation, "it
was too funny for anything. There were the two Missouri girls from
Skinner's, with their auburn hair ringleted, my dear, like the old
'Books of Beauty'--in white frocks and sashes of an unripe greenish
yellow, that puckered up your mouth like persimmons. One of them was
speechless from good behavior, and the other--well! the other was
so energetic she called out the figures before the fiddler did, and
shrieked to my vis-a-vis to dance up to the entire str