camp-fire--grew out of
the sand-dunes, and some half-covered dead logs were unearthed from
the drifted sand, and soon reduced to glowing coals.

Meanwhile, we were enjoying one of those remarkable Arizona desert
sunsets. Ominous clouds had been gathering in the afternoon, rising
from the southwest, drifting across the canyon, and piling up against
the north wall. A few fleecy clouds in the west partially obscured the
sun until it neared the horizon, then a shaft of sunlight broke
through once more, telegraphing its approach long before it reached
us, the rays being visibly hurled through space like a javelin, or a
lightning bolt, striking peak after peak so that one almost imagined
they would hear the thunder roll. A yellow flame covered the western
sky, to be succeeded in a few minutes by a crimson glow. The sharply
defined colours of the different layers of rock had merged and
softened, as the sun dropped from sight; purple shadows crept into the
cavernous depths, while shafts of gold shot to the very tiptop of the
peaks, or threw their shadows like silhouettes on the wall beyond.
Then the scene shifted again, and it was all blood-red, reflecting
from the sky and staining the rocks below, so that distant wall and
sky merged, with little to show where the one ended and the other
began. That beautiful haze, which tints, but does not obscure,
enshrouded the temples and spires, changing from heliotrope to
lavender, from lavender to deepest purple; there was a departing flare
of flame like the collapse of a burning building; a few clouds in the
zenith, torn by the winds so that they resembled the craters of the
moon, were tinted for an instant around the crater's rims; the clouds
faded to a dove-like gray; they darkened; the gray disappeared; the
purple crept from the canyon into the arched dome overhead; the day
was ended, twilight passed, and darkness settled over all.

We sat silently by the fire for a few minutes, then rose and resumed
our evening's work. This camp was at a point that could be seen from
the Grand View hotel, fourteen miles from our home. We talked of
building a signal fire on the promontory above the camp, knowing that
the news would be telephoned to home if the fire was seen. But we gave
up the plan. Although less than twenty miles from Bright Angel Trail,
we were not safely through by any means. Two boats had been wrecked or
lost in different rapids less than six miles from this camp. The
forty-foo