s of rock,
sculptured cathedrals and alabaster terraces in an artist's dream of
color. A pearl from heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire into
this chasm. A stream of opal flowed out of the sun, to touch each peak,
mesa, dome, parapet, temple and tower, cliff and cleft into the
new-born life of another day.

I sat there for a long time and knew that every second the scene
changed, yet I could not tell how. I knew I sat high over a hole of
broken, splintered, barren mountains; I knew I could see a hundred
miles of the length of it, and eighteen miles of the width of it, and a
mile of the depth of it, and the shafts and rays of rose light on a
million glancing, many-hued surfaces at once; but that knowledge was no
help to me. I repeated a lot of meaningless superlatives to myself, and
I found words inadequate and superfluous. The spectacle was too elusive
and too great. It was life and death, heaven and hell.

I tried to call up former favorite views of mountain and sea, so as to
compare them with this; but the memory pictures refused to come, even
with my eyes closed. Then I returned to camp, with unsettled, troubled
mind, and was silent, wondering at the strange feeling burning within
me.

Jones talked about our visitor of the night before, and said the trail
near where he had slept showed only one cougar track, and that led down
into the canyon. It had surely been made, he thought, by the beast we
had heard. Jones signified his intention of chaining several of the
hounds for the next few nights at the head of this trail; so if the
cougar came up, they would scent him and let us know. From which it was
evident that to chase a lion bound into the canyon and one bound out
were two different things.

The day passed lazily, with all of us resting on the warm, fragrant
pine-needle beds, or mending a rent in a coat, or working on some camp
task impossible of commission on exciting days.

About four o'clock, I took my little rifle and walked off through the
woods in the direction of the carcass where I had seen the gray wolf.
Thinking it best to make a wide detour, so as to face the wind, I
circled till I felt the breeze was favorable to my enterprise, and then
cautiously approached the hollow were the dead horse lay. Indian
fashion, I slipped from tree to tree, a mode of forest travel not
without its fascination and effectiveness, till I reached the height of
a knoll beyond which I made sure was my objective poin