MONUMENT COUNTRY, RAINBOW TRAIL.
Isolated cliffs pointed the valley in every grotesque form.
RAINBOW BRIDGE TRAIL.
CHAPTER XXI
THE CANYON DE CHELLEY
WE had been pulled out of difficulties by donkeys, men, autos and pulleys. It remained for Kayenta to show us a new way out. When a terrific thank-you-marm jolted off our power, our late host’s daughter rode out on her stout cow-pony, roped us, so to speak, and started forward as though she intended to tow us. The knowing horse, who had seen thousands of steers act as the old lady was doing now, treated the car with equal contempt, and braced her feet. It was thirty-horse to one-horse power, but the better animal won. We slid forward in gear, jolting our power on again as we moved ahead.
Sluggish after two week’s hard exercise, we were late in getting started for Chin Le. Thunderous clouds were already blackening the afternoon sky. They greatly increased the desert’s beauty, making it majestic beyond words. Soon the storm burst, and silver sheets of rain obliterated everything but the distant red hills. We were in the middle of a flat plain with landmarks more or less like any other landmarks. By twilight we were traveling through thick, red mud, and by dark the mud had disappeared beneath an inland lake. The road was not. We only knew we kept to it, in some miraculous fashion, because we continued slowly to progress. Halfway to Chin Le we stopped in the dark at a little trader’s post, bought gasoline at seventy-five cents a gallon, and continued our splashing. All we could see between two lines of hills was water. We lost the road for a moment, got into a deep draw, and when we emerged from our bath, the generating system was no more.
Around us was blackness, with a few distant mesas outlined through the slashing rain. The men got out, and examined the machinery, while Toby and I stayed within, enjoying the luxury of a breakdown which necessitated no exertion on our part. They returned covered with mud halfway to the knees. The guide volunteered to walk to Chin Le for help. It might be five or ten miles. We promised, rather unnecessarily, not to move till he returned. He took our one electric torch, and vanished into the blackest night I ever saw. A forlorn feeling settled over us. We had no light, little food and no guide, and no present means of transportation. If our guide fell into some new-born raging torrent, not one of us knew the way back.