That evening, with the sun setting upon the rainbow-colored forests which were in plain sight of the camp, the scouts ate supper and speculated on what wonders in Chalcedony Park and Rainbow Forests the morrow might have in store for them.
Although the third and fourth forests were intensely interesting, they failed to make the same deep impression on the minds of the scouts as the first one had done. Nevertheless the entire party found plenty of things to see to fill a day, and they started back for Adamana with so many mental pictures of the Petrified Trees that Mr. Gilroy said that they would surely dream of them that night. However, his prediction failed to come true, as every one was so healthily tired out that sleep proved to be too deep for dreams that night.
At the comfortable little inn of Adamana the host said: “You really ought to visit the Lava Fields and Sunset Crater now that you’re so near them. Then there’s Diablo Cañon on the trail, and Meteorite Mountain only ten miles from Diablo. Then take the train to Williams, if you can’t take time to go horseback through the San Francisco Mountains; there you can change to the spur that runs to the Grand Cañon.”
Though the scouts were impatient to arrive at the wonderful lode-star that had beckoned them West, they signified their willingness to defer that moment when they should stand on the rim of the world and gaze at the awful rent in Mother Earth’s garment—a rent over a hundred miles in length, eighteen miles in width, and over a mile in depth, all to be seen in one sweeping glance from a point which projects from the upper level of the ground at the top of the Cañon.
“I was going to add,” said the host, “that being this far up the trail it would be a crime for you not to ride on to Flagstaff, where you ought to visit the Lowell Observatory. Go there at night, and be introduced to the stars in the heavens.”
It was due to this man’s suggestions and the scouts’ obedience to his advice, that the citizens of Elmertown were treated to several articles signed “Juliet Lee.” The first one read:
“At Sunset Crater and the Lava Fields to-day we could see hundreds of square miles of volcanic activities. The most interesting of these lava flows and extinct craters is one which is plainly visible from the Santa Fé railroad. It shines resplendent as though the sun were casting its red-gold rays upon the crest of the peak. It is said that the particles of iron in the rock of which this mountain is formed has oxidized and now presents the glowing color of sunset; when seen in this remarkable air of Arizona you can imagine the sun is shining forever upon that volcano.”
Another day the readers of the Record were treated to a graphic bit about Meteorite Mountain.
“We rode to Meteorite Mountain, which is a peculiar mound about two hundred feet high. Even before we reached it we saw pieces of meteoric iron scattered about, seeming to bear out the theory of our scientists that the meteor struck here, exploded, and blasted the hole into which it fell, leaving the great rim of upturned earth two hundred feet high that constitutes the mound.
“We climbed this mound and found the huge bowl at the top to be more than a mile deep, with more than forty acres area at the bottom. If you care to see what the fearful effect would be of hurling a blazing meteor from the sky and having it strike a soft globe of earth, just climb up to the steeple of the Elmertown Church and drop a rock about the size of a water-melon into a large mud-puddle. The rock may not splash, but the puddle would.