Adam plodded along this wide gravel wash, with the high bronze saw-toothed peaks of the Funerals on the left, and some yellow-clay dunes showing their tips over the bank on the right. At length he came to a place that suggested a possible sloping of these colored clay dunes down into a basin or canyon. Climbing up the bank, he took a few steps across the narrow top, there to be halted as if he had been struck.
He had been confronted by a tremendous amphitheater, a yellow gulf, a labyrinthine maze so astounding that he discredited his sight.
Before him and on each side the earth was as bare as the bareness of rock—a mystic region of steps and slopes and slants, of channels and dunes and mounds, of cone-shaped and fan-shaped ridges, all of denuded crinkly clay with tiny tracery of erosion as graceful as the veins of a leaf, all merging their marvelous hues in a mosaic of golden amber, of cream yellow, of mauve, of bronze cinnamon. How bleak and ghastly, yet how beautiful in their stark purity of denudation! Endless was the number of smooth, scalloped, and ribbed surfaces, all curving with exquisite line and grace down into the dry channels under the dunes. At the base of the lower circle of the amphitheater the golds and yellows and russets were strongest, but along the wide wings moving away toward the abyss below were more vividly wonderful hues—a dark, beautiful mouse color on the left contrasting with a strange pearly cream on the other. These were striking bands of color sweeping the eye away as far as they extended, and jealously drawing it back again. Between these great corners of the curve climbed ridges of gray and heliotrope to meet streaks of green—the mineral green of copper, like the color of the sea in sunlight—and snowy traceries of white that were narrow veins of outcropping borax. High up above the rim of the amphitheater, along the battlements of the mountain, stood out a zigzag belt of rusty red, from which the iron stain had run downward to tinge the lower hues. Above all this wondrous coloration upheaved the bare breast of the mountain, growing darker with earthy browns until the bold ramparts of the peak, gray like rock, gleamed pale against the leaden-blue sky. Low down through the opening of the amphitheater gleamed a void, a distant bottom of the bowl, dim and purple and ghastly, with shining white streaks like silver streams—and this was Death Valley.
And then Adam, with breast oppressed by feelings too deep for utterance, retracted his far-seeing gaze, once more to look over the whole amazing spectacle, from the crinkly buff clay under his feet to the dim white bottom of the valley. And at this keen instant he again heard a cry. Human it was, or else he had lost his mind, and all which he saw here was disordered imagination.
Turning back, he ran in the direction whence he believed the sound had come, passing by some rods the point where he had climbed out of the wash. And at the apex of the great curve, toward which tended all the multitude of wrinkles of the denuded slopes, he found a trail coming up out of the amphitheater and leading down into the wash. The dust bore unmistakable signs of fresh moccasin tracks, of hobnailed boots, and of traces where water had been spilled. The boot impressions led down and the moccasin tracks up; and, as these latter were the fresher, Adam, after a pause of astonishment and a keen glance all around, began to follow them.
The trail led across the wash and turned west toward where the walls commenced to take on the dignity of a canyon. Bunches of sage and greasewood began to dot the sand, and beyond showed the thickets of mesquite. Some prospector was packing water from the creek up the canyon and down into that amphitheater. Suddenly Adam thought of Dismukes. He examined the next hobnailed boot track he descried in the dust with minute care. The foot that had made it did not belong to Dismukes. Adam hurried on.
He came upon a spot where the man he was trailing—surely an Indian—had fallen in the sand. A dark splotch, sticky and wet, had never been made by spilled water. Adam recognized blood when he touched it, but if he had not known it by the feel, he surely would have by the smell. Probably at that instant Adam became fully himself again. He was on the track of events, he sensed some human being in trouble; and the encroaching spell of Death Valley lost its power.
The trail led into the mesquites, to a wet glade rank with sedge and dank with the damp odor of soapy water.
A few more hurried strides brought Adam upon the body of an Indian, lying face down at the edge of the trickling little stream. His black matted hair was bloody. A ragged, torn, and stained shirt bore further evidence of violence. Adam turned him over, seeing at a glance that he had been terribly beaten about the head with a blunt instrument. He was gasping. Swiftly Adam scooped up water in his hat. He had heard that kind of a gasp before. Lifting the Indian’s head, Adam poured water into the open mouth. Then he bathed the blood-stained face.
The Indian was of the tribe that had packed supplies for the Vireys. He was apparently fatally hurt. It was evident that he wanted to speak. And from the incoherent mixture of language which these Indians used in conversation with white men Adam gathered significant details of gold, of robbers, of something being driven round and round, grinding stone like maize.