Day after day they rode through cañons and winding intermittent gullies, shallow basins, and dry washes. They followed trails through thick sagebrush and cottonwoods, over dry beds of streams and sunken deserts, marveling how the dull gray and olive of the sagebrush and trees mingled. They learned that many of the mountains were extinct volcanoes and admired the brilliant colored sandstone and shale formations. Once or twice they ran into heavy thunderstorms that turned dried-up streams into rushing torrents of muddy swirling waters.
They explored with keen interest Monument Valley with the spire-like rock of El Capitan at its head, and its fantastic flat topped pillars rising thousands of feet into the air. A day’s ride from Kayenta the riders came upon Betatakin, one of the most interesting, although least known, of the cliff dwellings, standing silent within its mammoth cave.
“Just think, hundreds of people lived and died here a thousand years ago,” Virginia commented.
“I’m glad we don’t live in houses like these,” Janet said, as she climbed up the worn stone steps to the next level. “I’ve no desire to climb all these steps every time I want to go home.”
“If you walked in your sleep it was just too bad,” added Carol, looking back down at the stones over which they had come.
“It gives me an appetite,” Madge complained. “When do we eat?”
“The sooner the better,” put in Phyllis.
For hours the girls prowled around in the dark houses of the cliff dwellers, taking their time to examine everything of interest. The next day they resumed their riding, heading south toward the K Bar O.
During the days Gale and Phyllis had a lot of practice with their revolvers and now could succeed in coming fairly close to the bull’s eye every time they tried. Gale, too, was becoming proficient with her rope. Jim spent hours teaching her and she proved an apt pupil.
Riding with Virginia behind Jim as they swung along the trail, Gale was looking up at the trees and the blue sky, thinking how she would hate to leave all this when it came time for the Adventure Girls to go back East.