We persuaded our horses to a trot, for we still had miles to go. At twilight, when the heat suddenly changed to a frosty cool, we turned into a side canyon whose narrow walls rose higher as we progressed. The horses slipped and tumbled in the dark. Unexpectedly, Toby and I found ourselves struggling alone up a path which became more precarious every minute. Our horses finally refused to advance, and dismounting, we saw that we had mistaken for a trail a blind shelf of the bank high above the stream. The ledge narrowed till there was scarcely room to turn around; the horses’ feet slipped among the loose boulders. We could see little but the blazing stars overhead. We could hear nothing; our party had ridden far ahead without missing us. At last a faint call drifted to us, and soon a guide appeared to our rescue. Turning down the stream-bed we made our way after him to camp, a mile further, where the others were already dismounted, and the pack unloaded.
Tired and ravenous, we rested on our saddles while the horses strayed off, munching the fine, sweet grass. If Mr. Wetherell was tired he showed no sign, though since morning he had been busy. While the other men unpacked bedding and arranged camp, he dug a deep pit, placing burning logs within. The pit finished, he buried the mutton that a few hours ago was a happy sheep, and covered it lightly. Before we could believe it possible, it was cooked. Steaming and crisp it was sliced and distributed, and the mutton which had been a sheep became as rapidly a remnant.
The day had been sultry, but we were glad now of the roaring fire. It sent a glare on the face of the red cliffs on the opposite bank, not unlike El Capitan of Yosemite in contour. We looked and forgot them again, to look again and be surprised to see them in place of the sky. Not till we threw our heads far back could we see their edge. The pleasant sound of the little stream came incessantly from below. His silver glittering in the firelight, Hostein Chee sat smoking a cigarette, like a Buddha breathing incense. I went to him, and tried to bargain my Ingersoll wrist-watch for his armlet. I let him hear it tick.
“Wah-Wah-Tay-See, Little Firefly,” I said, in the Indian language of the poet, pointing out the radium hands. “Light me with your little candle. I give you this?”
Hostein Chee accepted it with a child-like smile.
“And you give me this?” I said, touching his armlet.
“No good,” said Hostein Chee, drawing back in alarm. But I had difficulty in getting my watch back. Each night of the trip thereafter, we went through the same game, the Red Man accepting my watch with gratification, but showing the same surprised obstinacy when I tried to take the armlet, and polite regret at having to return my watch. In the end, he lost the name bestowed on him by a derisive community, and became Wah-Wah-Tay-See for the rest of the trip.
Sleep that night was more romantically staged than under ordinary circumstances. The cold, glacial tang of high altitude nipped us pleasantly. The cliffs shut us in, not forbiddingly but protectingly. The firelight was cozy and homelike. We made a little oasis of human companionship in this wide primeval solitude, but our spirits were high enough not to feel our isolation. Rather, we had an increased elation and sense of freedom. What myriads of people, jostling each other every day, never get more than a few feet away from their kind! We had a sense of courage toward life new to us all. The mere fact of our remoteness helped us shake off layers and layers of other people’s personality, which we had falsely regarded as our own and showed us new selves undreamed of. We laugh, at the movies, at the frequency with which the hero goes “out there, away from all this” to “find himself.” Yet I think everyone should, once in a while, leave routine and safety behind, with water that runs from faucets, beds under roofs, and food coming daily from baker and grocer, and policemen on every corner. Too much security stales the best in us.
It seemed the middle of the night when we were wakened by the sound of galloping hoofs. From our tent window, we saw the morning sky painting an orange band against the cliffs, and Hostein Chee driving the outfit up the ravine. On his pony’s saddle hung the carcass of a second sheep, for from today we were to leave fresh meat behind us. Even the Navajos and Piutes seldom wander far into this hinterland of nowhere. We snatched a few minutes more of sleep, guiltily, while through our door came sounds of preparation for breakfast. We shivered and piled on more coats. At last the crackle of the fire promised warmth; we crawled out, washed in the stream, and found breakfast ready and the packers impatiently waiting for tents and gunnysacks.
“Look,” said somebody, pointing. Mr. Wetherell smiled. To our right, sheltering us with its six hundred feet of red wall rose a cliff, curved half-way up like an inverted bowl, and blackened with streaks where water had once run. The same water had carved the bowl, and had it worked awhile longer it would have bored through the cliff and made a natural bridge. As it was, it formed a simple but perfect shelter for a large cliff city, so completely the color of the cliff that but for the black window holes, we should never have found them for ourselves.