He bestirred himself at the first glimpse of day, and when the gray mists had lifted to wreathe the crags it was light enough to begin the journey. Mescal shed tears at the grave of the faithful peon. “He loved this canyon,” she said, softly. Hare lifted her upon Silvermane. He walked beside the horse and Wolf trotted on before. They travelled awhile under the flowering cottonwoods on a trail bordered with green tufts of grass and great star-shaped lilies. The river was still hidden, but it filled the grove with its soft thunder. Gradually the trees thinned out, hard stony ground encroached upon the sand, bowlders appeared in the way; and presently, when Silvermane stepped out of the shade of the cottonwoods, Hare saw the lower end of the valley with its ragged vent.
“Look back!” said Mescal.
Hare saw the river bursting from the base of the wall in two white streams which soon united below, and leaped down in a continuous cascade. Step by step the stream plunged through the deep gorge, a broken, foaming raceway, and at the lower end of the valley it took its final leap into a blue abyss, and then found its way to the Colorado, hidden underground.
The flower-scented breeze and the rumbling of the river persisted long after the valley lay behind and above, but these failed at length in the close air of the huge abutting walls. The light grew thick, the stones cracked like deep bell-strokes; the voices of man and girl had a hollow sound and echo. Silvermane clattered down the easy trail at a gait which urged Hare now and then from walk to run. Soon the gully opened out upon a plateau through the centre of which, in a black gulf, wound the red Colorado, sullen-voiced, booming, never silent nor restful. Here were distances by which Hare could begin to comprehend the immensity of the canyon, and he felt lost among the great terraces leading up to mesas that dwarfed the Echo Cliffs. All was bare rock of many hues burning under the sun.
“Jack, this is mescal,” said the girl, pointing to some towering plants.
All over the sunny slopes cacti lifted slender shafts, unfolding in spiral leaves as they shot upward and bursting at the top into plumes of yellow flowers. The blossoming stalks waved in the wind, and black bees circled round them.
“Mescal, I've always wanted to see the Flower of the Desert from which you're named. It's beautiful.”
Hare broke a dead stalk of the cactus and was put to instant flight by a stream of bees pouring with angry buzz from the hollow centre. Two big fellows were so persistent that he had to beat them off with his hat.
“You shouldn't despoil their homes,” said Mescal, with a peal of laughter.
“I'll break another stalk and get stung, if you'll laugh again,” replied Hare.