The Awakening of the Desert

by Julius Charles Birge

Under favorable conditions Echo Canyon is a charming ravine. While our evening campfire was lighting up the deep gorge, Ben, Fred and I wandered down the banks of Echo Creek, the bright waters of which glide along the base of overhanging sandstone cliffs, and we soon guessed why the canyon had received its present name. To the focus of the vast concaves that have been scooped from some of the cliffs the sound of our voices came back with redoubled power, and to other points with softer reverberations startling in effect. It is an unobservant traveler whose attention has not often been arrested by weird echoes coming to his ears from some mountain cliffs, but in the shadows of this canyon we discussed the phenomena of echoes while interesting demonstrations were being made. We endeavored to calculate the distance of the unseen cliffs that sent back the sound, and then speculated upon the effect such phenomena would produce upon the minds of an imaginative people like the Greeks of the older period, who were ready at any time to pay homage to any deity previously unrecognized. It was not strange that they should conceive the fiction of the Nymph Echo, who because of her babbling was made to pine away into a bodiless voice. Nights leisurely spent in these canyons would lead the untutored mind to let loose its fancy, if it possessed any, and people this mountain valley with beings more than human.

As we looked westward down the canyon we noticed a little grove of quaking aspen trees which had sent some of their slender branches above the lines of the cliffs beyond, so that they were silhouetted against the evening sky. Although the air seemed to be perfectly still in the valley, the leaves of the aspen trees were vigorously shaking, as if some invisible sprites were using them to wave signals across the gorge.

From the ravines now and then there came the dismal howl of a timber wolf, and the cry, hurled back from the echoing rocks, was repeated after a little delay, as if the wolf had been awaiting the returning sound, like enough to his own to be the voice of his hungry brother. The little stream continued to flow down the valley over its stony bed, rushing under overhanging willows, singing its own peculiar music, in which there was any melody that one's fancy might conceive.

Amidst these startling sounds we wandered through the gloom nearly a mile down the dark, rocky road where we decided that it was time to return. Before retracing our steps up the canyon we gave a short whoop, which as before was echoed back from the other side. To our astonishment the first echo was quickly followed by a soft, suppressed whoop and echo, evidently the voice of a girl. We repeated our call, but no voice then came back except our own. Renewed curiosity impelled us to follow the pathway farther down stream. The light of a campfire soon broke through the foliage, and it became evident that another party was in the valley. Approaching the group, we discovered to our great surprise and pleasure that it was the family of Dr. Brown from whom we had separated at Julesburg and who intended to remain in Denver. On their arrival at that mining camp, letters were received by the doctor urging him to proceed at once to Oregon where a friend had located at a place offering an excellent opportunity for a physician to practice his profession.

Echo Canyon, which proved to be so interesting to us and in which several days and nights were again spent later in the season, is twenty-three miles in length and increases in depth as it narrows down to its outlet into the valley of the Weber River. At a few points, narrow, steep ravines radiate from the main canyon, and in their walls a few small caves are found. From the summits above the valley the views obtained were superb.

At the break of day after our first night in Echo Canyon, we heard the approaching mail coach rattling along the stony road, making its best possible speed down the rapidly descending grade, turning short curves on the dizzy edge of cliffs over which a slight deviation would have hurled it upon the rocks below. A glimpse into the open windows, as the coach rolled by, revealed the passengers within half-reclining in various attitudes, doubtless weary with their long ride and evidently unconscious of the grand scenery through which they were plunging.

On the ninth of August we reached the station at the mouth of the canyon, and a general rush was made for the establishment in which we learned there was a telegraph office, the wires having been strung to Salt Lake several months previous to our visit. Many weeks had passed since we had received any intelligence from the busy world.

"What's the news from America?" asked Ben after we had entered the door.

"Here's the last Salt Lake paper," said the genial proprietor, as he laid the welcome sheet upon the counter.

We gathered closely around the journal, and all read the first headlines: "The Success of the Prussians Attributed to the Needle Gun."