hem. Hello! I hear a signal.
That's from Wallace. Waa-hoo! Waa-hoo! There he is, coming out of the
hollow."

The tall Californian reached us presently with Sounder beside him. He
reported that the hound had chased a lion into an impassable break. We
then joined Frank on a jutting crag of the canyon wall.

"Waa-hoo!" yelled Jones. There was no answer except the echo, and it
rolled up out of the chasm with strange, hollow mockery.

"Don took a cougar down this slide," said Frank. "I saw the brute, an'
Don was makin' him hump. A--ha! There! Listen to thet!"

From the green and yellow depths soared the faint yelp of a hound.

"That's Don! that's Don!" cried Jones. "He's hot on something. Where's
Sounder? Hyar, Sounder! By George! there he goes down the slide. Hear
him! He's opened up! Hi! Hi! Hi!"

The deep, full mellow bay of the hound came ringing on the clear air.

"Wallace, you go down. Frank and I will climb out on that pointed crag.
Grey, you stay here. Then we'll have the slide between us. Listen and
watch!"

From my promontory I watched Wallace go down with his gigantic strides,
sending the rocks rolling and cracking; and then I saw Jones and Frank
crawl out to the end of a crumbling ruin of yellow wall which
threatened to go splintering and thundering down into the abyss.

I thought, as I listened to the penetrating voice of the hound, that
nowhere on earth could there be a grander scene for wild action, wild
life. My position afforded a commanding view over a hundred miles of
the noblest and most sublime work of nature. The rim wall where I stood
sheered down a thousand feet, to meet a long wooded slope which cut
abruptly off into another giant precipice; a second long slope
descended, and jumped off into what seemed the grave of the world. Most
striking in that vast void were the long, irregular points of rim wall,
protruding into the Grand Canyon. From Point Sublime to the Pink Cliffs
of Utah there were twelve of these colossal capes, miles apart, some
sharp, some round, some blunt, all rugged and bold. The great chasm in
the middle was full of purple smoke. It seemed a mighty sepulcher from
which misty fumes rolled upward. The turrets, mesas, domes, parapets
and escarpments of yellow and red rock gave the appearance of an
architectural work of giant hands. The wonderful river of silt, the
blood-red, mystic and sullen Rio Colorado, lay hidden except in one
place far away, where it glimmered wanly. Thou