WONDERS OF THE GRAND CANYON
Stacy was the only member of the Overland party who cared to eat when
they reached the lunch station. Some of the girls took tea, but merely
sipped it as they watched the fat boy eat a hearty meal.
Camp was made that night near the station, and on the following morning
they rode away over the Government road around the shore of the West
Arm, after which they were to make a detour to reach the lake again at
Bridge Bay. From there it was but a short journey to the Lake Hotel.
“Jim, when do the stages come through?” called Lieutenant Wingate after
the outfit had gotten well under way.
“We’ll meet one to-day,” replied the guide. “Others will be along
to-morrow, and the day after, too, I reckon, but we may not see any
after we git past the Lake Hotel, ’cause we might strike off from the
trail there. I haven’t decided ’bout that yet.”
“The rougher they come the better we like it,” chuckled Hippy.
“May we catch fish where we’re going?” asked Stacy eagerly. “Cook and
catch fish?”
“You mean catch and cook, don’t you?” reminded Nora.
“Either way so long as we get the fish inside of us,” averred Stacy. “I
don’t care whether you cook them before you catch them, or catch them
before you cook them, or whether you eat them before doing either. It’s
the fish, not the—”
“Do you know,” interjected Emma, “I don’t believe there is anything in
the brain-food theory?”
The Overlanders saw the point and laughed heartily, and Stacy regarded
Emma narrowly. They did not stop at the Lake Hotel, but continued on and
camped near the base of Elephant Back Mountain.
That evening Tom Gray gave them a talk on the Yellowstone Lake. He said
the lake was about a mile and a half above the level of the sea, having
an area of one hundred and thirty-nine square miles, the average depth
being thirty feet, although in places it was said to be three hundred
feet deep.
“Yes, few lakes in the world surpass it in either area, altitude or
beauty,” added Tom Gray. “Where else will you find ice-cold water on the
one hand and boiling hot on the other, both easily reached by the
stretching out of the hands at one and the same time?”
“I know,” cried Stacy. “Ask me something harder.”
“Well, where, Mr. Smarty?” demanded Nora.
Stacy confessed that he didn’t know, but that he was certain he could
think of a place if he were to ponder long enough.
“Don’t try it,” warned Emma. “For your information, Stacy Brown, outside
the kitchen stove in winter time you will find the ice water, and the
boiling water inside,” Emma informed him amid peals of laughter.
At this juncture, Hippy rose to make a speech.
“We find ourselves amid scenes of almost overpowering beauty,” he began.
“Present company excepted,” muttered Stacy.
“Mountains tower thousands of feet above the surface of the lake, the
latter being fed almost wholly by the springs and snows of the—of the
Absaroka Range, the mountains forming a picturesque background to the
shores of the lake, and—and—” Hippy’s voice died away.
“Permit me to help you out, Hippy,” offered Emma sweetly. “What you
would say, had you not forgotten the piece you committed to memory from
the guide book, is, Nature has lavished her most extraordinary gifts on
the region of the Yellowstone. Here are wild woodland, carpeted with
varicolored flowers, crystal rivers, thundering cataracts, gorgeous
canyons, sparkling cascades, birds and animals; but of all its wonders
none is so unusual, so startling, so weird, as the spouting geysers,
especially the one that wears Captain Gray’s pajamas and Stacy Brown’s
shirt,” finished Emma in a gale of laughter from her companions.
That night the water in their cooking utensils froze, and the
Overlanders rose in the morning chilled to the marrow. A brisk run up
and down, while Jim was building the fire, restored their circulation
and their spirits.
“Our altitude above sea level is seven thousand, seven hundred and
thirty-eight feet,” announced Tom Gray. “No wonder the water froze last
night.”
Their route, from that point on, lay along the west bank of the
Yellowstone River on their way to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
They started out early in the morning, and by sunrise were well on their
way. On their right the guide pointed out the profile of the Sleeping
Giant on a high mountain range, the features being coated with snow.
“It’s a wonder he doesn’t freeze his face,” commented Stacy.
“Perhaps he would were it as soft as some persons,” suggested Emma
demurely.
“Ouch!” cried Stacy. “That one went home.”
“Yes, the place where you ought to be,” added Nora.
“Home is all right when a fellow hasn’t any other place to go to. Of
course home is the place for girls because all they can do is to chatter
and try to look pretty,” retorted Chunky.
The journey was made without incident, unless the perpetual cloud of
dust could be called an incident. Dust seems a necessary part of
Government roads in the Yellowstone, and the Overland Riders were
covered with it ere they had proceeded far on their way.
When within a mile or so of the Canyon Hotel, the murmur of rushing
waters was borne to their ears. It was a welcome sound, and the guide
informed them that it was the Yellowstone Rapids that they heard. The
river, which up to that time had flowed along peacefully, was now forced
close up to the Government road by the canyon walls. Mountainous
boulders obstructed its passage, the waters plunging wildly between
steep banks and over rocks, breaking into boisterous waterfalls and
hurling the spray high in the air. Stacy said it reminded him of a
blizzard in Chillicothe.
Camp was made without taking a look at the canyon. After a day of hard
riding, dust and discomfort, they had little desire for scenery, and
further, it was decided to have their first look at this wonder of
nature in the early morning.
That first view was taken from Grand Point just as the sun was rising
over the mountains, a view that drew exclamations of wonder from each
pair of lips. The canyon, though not so vast as the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado, was different. This one wound in and out for more than twenty
miles, being about two thousand feet broad at the top and some two
hundred feet at the bottom.
“Stupendous!” breathed Elfreda Briggs as they strolled out on Lookout
Point, a great projection of rock overhanging the canyon. Here the
Overlanders gazed in wonder from the painted walls, for which the canyon
is famed, to the snowy waterfalls and river, the latter tracing its way
like a slender ribbon of silver set amid all the colors of the rainbow.
“It is awesome!” breathed Grace Harlowe. “The little shower that has
just passed, has varnished the rocks and brought out the colors with
splendid effect.”
The rush and roar of the lower falls, half a mile distant, could be
plainly heard, and the mist that rose from them drifted slowly up into
the air, where it was caught by the rays of the morning sun, forming an
exquisite rainbow that brought murmurs of wonder from the entranced
Overland Riders.
“This is known as Moran Point,” announced the guide after they had moved
to another promontory from which to view the splendid scenery.
“Oh, yes,” nodded Tom. “It must have been here that Thomas Moran painted
the sketches for his great Yellowstone picture now in the capitol at
Washington. The statement is attributed to Moran that fully a million
tints and shades of color are represented here.”
“I can well believe it,” nodded Grace.
“I think I should like to have a nice big pot of each one of those
colors,” spoke up Stacy. “At a dollar per I’d have some money, wouldn’t
I?”
“I do not think you would. Before you could sell it you would fall
somewhere and spill it all,” retorted Emma.
At the guide’s suggestion they followed the road along the edge of the
canyon, finding many things to interest them, things that, while small
in comparison with the canyon itself, were well worth their attention.
Through the rustling pines they caught a glimpse of Castle Rock, rising
nearly two thousand feet above the valley, and right among the pines
that had grown up about it they came upon an enormous block of granite,
weighing, Tom Gray estimated, fully a thousand tons.
“Is there any other granite like that in these parts?” he asked.
“No,” answered Badger. “It’s the only granite I know of within a hundred
miles of here. They call this block the ‘Devil’s Watch Charm.’”
“I suppose the great question is, ‘Where did it come from?’” suggested
Miss Briggs.
“Yes. It undoubtedly was transported here in the Glacial Age, and
possibly was rolled and hurled hundreds of miles, grinding its way amid
the ice of that remote age,” said Tom.
“Br-r-r-r!” shivered Stacy. “Had I lived then I should have had cold
feet all the time.”
“Again, why the past tense?” questioned Emma.
Stacy grumbled, but had nothing to say, and by now the party was turning
back towards camp. On their way they met a coach with a party of
tourists from the Canyon Hotel in charge of the proprietor. The latter,
so the Overlanders were informed, was about to make his daily trip to
the bottom of the canyon, as he expressed it, “for a little exercise and
to take the stiffness out of my joints.”
The canyon bottom lay a thousand feet below them at that point, Grand
View, and the sides of the canyon were steep and rugged.
“What? Are you going down there?” ejaculated Elfreda.
“Yes. I do it nearly every day. Wish to come with me?”
“In order to break my neck? Oh, no,” replied the young lawyer.
The hotel man laughed as he turned and leaped out over the precipice and
landed lightly on a narrow ledge of rock. Scarcely pausing to regain his
balance, he sprang to another rock and on from rock to rock with the
skill of a mountain goat until he reached the bottom.
Emma Dean had watched this feat intently, face flushed and eyes bright.
“No, you’ll not do as he’s done, Emma,” chortled Stacy. “You’re a
’fraid-cat and don’t dare do what we men do.” With the words Stacy took
a running start and leaped for the ledge on which the hotel man had
first landed. Stacy tottered, but before losing his balance entirely he
sprang for the next rock, and so saved himself from a plunge into the
abyss.
While the Overlanders and the hotel guests were still gasping they were
startled again by seeing Emma leap from the top and go lightly from rock
to rock as she made the perilous descent to the bottom of the gorge.
Hippy had run forward with the evident intention of following the
reckless pair, even if he could not prevent the foolish act; but Tom put
his hand on the lieutenant’s arm.
“No use, Hippy. They’ll either reach the bottom safely or—Well, in that
case, you would not be in time to prevent the accident.”
The hotel guests, with a less personal interest in the outcome, watched
the pair with fascination. Emma, light, graceful, and sure-footed,
reached the bottom and turned to wave her hand to those above. But poor
clumsy Chunky jumped and rolled and stumbled, and when he finally
reached the floor of the gorge, though alive and not seriously hurt, was
torn and disheveled and scratched, with blood oozing from superficial
cuts.
Emma eyed the boy a moment, then broke into gales of laughter. The hotel
man, being a kindly soul, tried to suppress his amusement. But Emma’s
laugh was irresistible, together with the boy’s woe-begone appearance,
and he finally laughed unrestrainedly.
“I got here, didn’t I? What’s so funny about that?” blustered Chunky.
“Anyway, you’re not a ’fraid-cat—any more than I am. But, oh, how you
look!” and again Emma laughed.
“How do we get out of here?” asked Stacy, largely to change the subject.
“You climb and clamber out, young man.”
Stacy turned fiercely to the hotel man.
“Do you mean that I’ve got to scramble up over those rocks to the top?
It can’t be done!”
“It has been done over and over. It has to be done unless you wish to
spend the rest of your life down here.”
Stacy groaned and Emma said:
“I don’t like the idea any too well myself. But what has to be, has to
be. Come, little boy, let’s start.”
It was a difficult climb, and Emma was red in the face and panting when
she finally rejoined her friends. When Stacy appeared three quarters of
an hour later he looked so battered that some of the spectators were
sorry for him, some alarmed, even though he did look funny as he
struggled to strut up to the Overland group as though nothing had
happened. But when one girl remarked mockingly, the while she laughed,
“Isn’t he the funny child?” the rest, in spite of themselves, joined the
laughter.
“Perhaps you folks think I’m some kind of joke or a baby or—or—”
“A brainless person,” suggested Emma.
“I’m a man,” went on the boy brazenly. “I’m a lion tamer! lean—”
Exclamations and screams interrupted this harangue.
“A bear with cubs, and something or somebody’s disturbed her!” shouted
some one.
“Run, everybody! She’s angry!”
Everybody did run, Stacy Brown, the “lion tamer,” in the fore, toward
the coach that had brought the hotel guests to the spot, into which most
of them climbed in haste.
The bear paused, then, as the menace to her cubs seemed less imminent,
turned and led them back toward the woods. Seeing this, Stacy Brown
bounced out of the coach and took after the retreating bear.
“Stacy!” called Hippy angrily. “Come back!”
“Watch me catch a bear first!”
But Chunky did not catch the bear. Again aroused by what seemed danger
to her cubs, the mother bear turned and charged the oncoming boy. Her
paw flashed through the air, and the boy was sent rolling into the road.
Before a further onset by the angry animal, Tom threw a stone with sure
aim, which struck the beast on her nose. She whirled, and, seeing her
cubs, again set out for the woods.
“Alors! Let’s go!” urged J. Elfreda Briggs.
“Yes, let’s get Stacy away before he kills himself or makes fools out of
us all,” grumbled Hippy.