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14 - Last of the Plainsmen by Zane Grey · Last of the Plainsmen

0:00
Speaker 1: Thirteen singing cliffs. Old Tom had rolled two hundred yards
0:06
Speaker 1: down the canyon, leaving a red trail and bits of
0:08
Speaker 1: fur behind him. When I had clambered down to this
0:12
Speaker 1: deep slide where he had lodged, Sounder and Jude had
0:15
Speaker 1: just decided he was no longer worth biting and were
0:18
Speaker 1: wagging her tails. Frank was shaking his head, and Joan,
0:21
Speaker 1: standing above the lion lasso in hand, wore a disconsolate face.
0:27
Speaker 1: Oh I wish I had got a rope on him.
0:30
Speaker 1: I reckon, we'd be gathering up the pieces of you
0:32
Speaker 1: if you had, said Frank dryly. We skinned the old
0:37
Speaker 1: king on the rocky slope of his mighty throne, and then,
0:40
Speaker 1: beginning to feel the effects of severe exertion, we cut
0:43
Speaker 1: across the slope for the foot of the brake. Once
0:46
Speaker 1: there we gazed up in dismay that brake resembled a
0:50
Speaker 1: walk of life. How easy to slip down, how hard
0:54
Speaker 1: to climb. Even Frank, inured as he was to strenuous toil,
0:59
Speaker 1: began to wear and wipe his sweaty brow. Before we
1:02
Speaker 1: had made one tenth of the ascent. It was particularly
1:06
Speaker 1: exasperating not to mention the danger of it to work
1:09
Speaker 1: a few feet up aslide and then feel it start
1:12
Speaker 1: to move. We had to climb in single file, which
1:14
Speaker 1: jeopardized the safety of those behind the leader. Sometimes we
1:18
Speaker 1: were all sliding at once like boys on a pond,
1:21
Speaker 1: with the difference that we were in danger. Frank forged ahead,
1:25
Speaker 1: turning to yell now and then for us to dodge
1:27
Speaker 1: a cracking stone. Faithful old Jude could not get up
1:32
Speaker 1: in some places, so, laying aside my rifle, I carried
1:35
Speaker 1: her and returned for the weapon. It became necessarily presently
1:39
Speaker 1: to hide behind cliff projections, to escape the avalanches started
1:43
Speaker 1: by Frank, and to wait till he had surmounted the break.
1:47
Speaker 1: Jones gave out completely several times, saying the exertion affected
1:50
Speaker 1: his heart. What with my rifle, my camera and Jude,
1:54
Speaker 1: I could offer him no assistance, and was really in
1:57
Speaker 1: need of that myself. When it seemed as if one
2:00
Speaker 1: more step would kill us, we reached the rim and
2:03
Speaker 1: fell panting. With labored chests and dripping skins. We could
2:08
Speaker 1: not speak. Jones had worn a pair of ordinary shoes
2:11
Speaker 1: without thick soles and nails, and it seemed well to
2:14
Speaker 1: speak of them in the past tense. They were split
2:17
Speaker 1: into ribbons and hung on by the laces. His feet
2:21
Speaker 1: were cut and bruised. On the way back to camp,
2:23
Speaker 1: we encountered mows and dawn coming out of the break
2:26
Speaker 1: where we had started Sounder on the trail. The paws
2:30
Speaker 1: of both hounds were yellow with dust, which proved they
2:33
Speaker 1: had been down under the rim wall. Jones doubted not
2:37
Speaker 1: in the least that they had chased a lion. Upon examination,
2:42
Speaker 1: this break proved to be one of the two which
2:44
Speaker 1: Clark used for trails to his wild horse corral in
2:47
Speaker 1: the canyon. According to him, the distance separating them was
2:50
Speaker 1: five miles by the rim wall, and less than half
2:53
Speaker 1: that in a straight line. Therefore, we made for the
2:57
Speaker 1: point of the forest, where it ended abruptly in the
3:00
Speaker 1: scrub oak. We got to camp a fatigue lot of men,
3:03
Speaker 1: horses and dogs. Jones appeared particularly happy, and his first
3:08
Speaker 1: move after dismounting was to stretch out the lion's skin
3:11
Speaker 1: and measure it ten feet three inches and a half.
3:15
Speaker 1: He sang out, sure it do beat hell, exclaimed Jim,
3:20
Speaker 1: in tones nearer to excitement than any I had ever
3:23
Speaker 1: heard him. Use. Old tom beats spot two inches any
3:27
Speaker 1: cougar I ever saw, continued Jones, he must have weighed
3:31
Speaker 1: more than three hundred. Will set about curing the hide, Jim,
3:35
Speaker 1: stretch it well on a tree, and will take a
3:37
Speaker 1: hand and peeling off the fat. All of the party
3:39
Speaker 1: worked on the cougar skin that afternoon. The grizzle at
3:42
Speaker 1: the base of the neck, where he had met the
3:44
Speaker 1: shoulders was so tough and thick we could not scrape
3:47
Speaker 1: it thin. Jones said, this particular spot was so well
3:51
Speaker 1: protected because in fighting cougars were most likely to bite
3:55
Speaker 1: and claw there. For that matter, the whole skin was tough,
3:59
Speaker 1: tougher than let there, and when it dried, it pulled
4:02
Speaker 1: all the horseshoe nails out of the pine tree upon
4:05
Speaker 1: which we had it stretched. About time for the sun
4:08
Speaker 1: to set. I strolled along the rim wall to look
4:10
Speaker 1: into the canyon. I was beginning to feel something of
4:13
Speaker 1: its character and had growing impressions. Dark purple smoke veiled
4:18
Speaker 1: the cliffs deep down between the maces. I walked along
4:21
Speaker 1: to where points of cliff ran out like capes and peninsulas.
4:25
Speaker 1: All seemed cracked, wrinkled, scarred and yellow with age, with shattered,
4:31
Speaker 1: toppling ruins of rocks regularly touched to go thundering down.
4:36
Speaker 1: I could not resist a temptation to crawl out to
4:39
Speaker 1: the farthest point, even though I shuddered over the yard
4:42
Speaker 1: wide ridges, and when once seated on a bare promontory
4:47
Speaker 1: two hundred feet from the regular rim wall, I felt isolated, marooned.
4:53
Speaker 1: The sun, a liquid red globe, had just touched its
4:57
Speaker 1: underside to the pink cliffs of Utah and fired a
5:00
Speaker 1: crimson flood of light over the wonderful mountains, plateaus, scrapements, mesas, domes,
5:06
Speaker 1: and turrets of the gorge. The rim wall of Powell's
5:09
Speaker 1: Plateau was a thin streak of fire, the timber above
5:13
Speaker 1: like grass of gold, and the long slopes below, shaded
5:17
Speaker 1: from bright to dark. Points sublime, bold and bare ran
5:21
Speaker 1: out towards the plateau, jealously reaching for the sun. Vast
5:26
Speaker 1: tomb peeped over the saddle. The Temple of Visue laid
5:30
Speaker 1: bathed in vapory shading clouds, a nitional altar shone with
5:36
Speaker 1: rays of glory, the beginning of the wondrous transformation. The
5:40
Speaker 1: dropping of the day's curtain was for me a rare
5:43
Speaker 1: and perfect moment, as the golden splendor of sunset sought
5:47
Speaker 1: out a peak or mesa or escarpment. I gave it
5:51
Speaker 1: a name to suit my fancy, and as flushing fading,
5:55
Speaker 1: its glory changed. Sometimes I rechristened it Jupiter's chariot rais,
6:00
Speaker 1: and wheeled stood ready to roll into the crowds. Cimrsa's bed,
6:05
Speaker 1: all gold shone from a tower of Babylon. Castor and
6:10
Speaker 1: Pollux clasped hands over a sterrienne river, the spur of Doom,
6:15
Speaker 1: a mountain shaft as red as hell and inaccessible, insurmountable,
6:21
Speaker 1: lured with a strange light dusk. A bold black dome
6:25
Speaker 1: was shrouded by the shadow of a giant mesa. The
6:29
Speaker 1: star of Bethlehem glittered from the brow of Points sublime.
6:34
Speaker 1: The wraith fleecy feathered curtain of mist floated down among
6:39
Speaker 1: the ruins of castles and palaces, like the ghosts of
6:42
Speaker 1: a goddess. Vales of twilight, dim dark ravines, mystic homes
6:48
Speaker 1: of specters led into the awful valley of the shadow,
6:52
Speaker 1: loathed in purple night. Suddenly, as the first puff of
6:56
Speaker 1: the night wind fan my cheek, a strange, sweet, low
6:59
Speaker 1: mona and sighing came to my ears. I almost thought
7:03
Speaker 1: I was in a dream, but the canyon, now blood red,
7:07
Speaker 1: was there in overwhelming reality, a profound, solemn, gloomy thing,
7:11
Speaker 1: but real. The wind blew stronger, and then I was
7:15
Speaker 1: listening to a sad, sweet song, which lulled as the
7:19
Speaker 1: wind lulled. I realized at once that the sound was
7:23
Speaker 1: caused by the wind blowing into the peculiar formations of
7:26
Speaker 1: the cliffs. It changed, softened, shaded, mellowed, but it was
7:32
Speaker 1: always sad. It rose from low, tremulous, sweetly quavering sighs
7:37
Speaker 1: to a sound like the last, woeful, despiring wail of
7:40
Speaker 1: a woman. It was the song of the sea sirens
7:44
Speaker 1: and the music of the waves. It had the soft
7:47
Speaker 1: sow of the night wind in the trees, and the
7:50
Speaker 1: haunting moan of lost spirits. With reluctance, I turned my
7:55
Speaker 1: back to the gorgeous, changing spectacle of the canyon and
7:59
Speaker 1: crawled into the rim wall. At the narrow neck of stone,
8:03
Speaker 1: I peered over to look down into misty blue nothingness.
8:07
Speaker 1: That night, Jones told stories of frightened hunters and assaged
8:10
Speaker 1: my mortification by saying buck fever was pardonable. After the
8:15
Speaker 1: danger had passed, and especially so in my case because
8:19
Speaker 1: of the great size and fame of Old Tom. The
8:24
Speaker 1: worst case of buck fever I ever saw was on
8:27
Speaker 1: a buffalo hunt I had with a fellow named Williams
8:30
Speaker 1: went on Jones. I was one of the scouts leading
8:33
Speaker 1: the wagon train west on the old Santa Fe trail.
8:37
Speaker 1: This fella, he said, he was a big hunter and
8:40
Speaker 1: wanted to kill a buffalo, so I took him out.
8:43
Speaker 1: I saw a herd making over the prairie for a
8:46
Speaker 1: hollow where a brook ran, and by hard work, got
8:50
Speaker 1: in ahead of them, picked out a position just below
8:53
Speaker 1: the edge of the bank, and we lay quiet, waiting
8:56
Speaker 1: from the direction of the buffalo. I calculated we'd be
8:59
Speaker 1: just right to get a shot at no very long range.
9:04
Speaker 1: As it was, I suddenly heard thumps on the ground, and,
9:06
Speaker 1: cautiously rising my head, saw a huge buffalo bull just
9:10
Speaker 1: over us, not fifteen feet up the bank. Whispered to Williams,
9:15
Speaker 1: for God's sake, don't shoot, don't move. The bull's fiery
9:19
Speaker 1: little eyes snapped and he reared. I thought we were gonners,
9:23
Speaker 1: for when a bull comes down on anything with his
9:25
Speaker 1: fore feet, it's done for. But he slowly settled back,
9:29
Speaker 1: perhaps doubtful. Then as another buffalo came along to the
9:32
Speaker 1: edge of the bank, luckily a little way from us,
9:35
Speaker 1: the bull turned broadside, presenting a splendid target. Then I
9:39
Speaker 1: whispered to Williams, now's your chance. Shoot. I waited for
9:43
Speaker 1: the shot, but none came. Look into Williams. I saw
9:46
Speaker 1: that he was white and trembling. Big drops of sweat
9:49
Speaker 1: stood out on his brow. His teeth chattered, and his
9:52
Speaker 1: hands shook. He had forgotten he carried a rifle. That
9:58
Speaker 1: reminds me, said Frank. They tell a story over at
10:01
Speaker 1: knob On a Dutchman named Schmidt. He was very fond
10:05
Speaker 1: of hunting, and I guess had pretty good success after
10:08
Speaker 1: deer and small game. One winter he was out on
10:12
Speaker 1: the Pink cliffs with a Mormon named Schoonover, and they
10:15
Speaker 1: ran into a layman, big grizzly track, fresh and wet.
10:19
Speaker 1: They trailed him to a clump of chaparral, and ongoing
10:23
Speaker 1: clear round it found no tracks leading out. Schoonover said,
10:26
Speaker 1: Schmidt commenced a sweat. They went back to the place
10:31
Speaker 1: where the trail led in, and there they were great
10:35
Speaker 1: big silver tip tracks, burger and horse tracks, so fresh
10:39
Speaker 1: that water was oozing out of them. Schmidt said, Zeke,
10:44
Speaker 1: you go in and get him well. Took sick right now.
10:47
Speaker 1: Happy as we were over our chase of Old Tom
10:50
Speaker 1: and her prospects for Sounder, Jude and Mose had seen
10:54
Speaker 1: a lion in a tree. We sought our blankets. Early.
10:58
Speaker 1: I lay watching the bright stars and listening to the
11:01
Speaker 1: roar of the wind in the pines. At intervals it
11:04
Speaker 1: lulled to a whisper, and then swelled to a roar,
11:08
Speaker 1: and then died away. Far off in the forest, a
11:11
Speaker 1: kyo barked once, time and time again. As I was
11:15
Speaker 1: gradually sinking into slumber, the sudden roar of the wind
11:19
Speaker 1: startled me. I imagined it was the crash of rolling
11:23
Speaker 1: weathered stone, and I saw again that huge, outspread flying
11:28
Speaker 1: lion above me. I awoke some time later to find
11:32
Speaker 1: Mose had sought the warmth of my side, and he
11:36
Speaker 1: lay so near my arm that I reached out and
11:40
Speaker 1: covered him with the end of the blanket I used
11:42
Speaker 1: to break the wind. It was very cold, and the
11:45
Speaker 1: time must have been very late, for the wind had
11:48
Speaker 1: died down, and I heard not a tinkle from the
11:50
Speaker 1: hobbled horses. The absence of the cow bell music gave
11:55
Speaker 1: me a sense of loneliness, for without it, the silence
11:58
Speaker 1: of the great forest was a thing to be felt.
12:01
Speaker 1: This oppressiveness, however, was broken by a far distant cry,
12:05
Speaker 1: unlike any sound I had ever heard. I sure of myself.
12:10
Speaker 1: I freed my ears from the blanketed hood and listened.
12:14
Speaker 1: It came again, a wild cry that made me think
12:17
Speaker 1: first of a lost child, and then of the morning
12:20
Speaker 1: wolf of the North. Must have been a long distance
12:23
Speaker 1: off in the forest. An interval of some moments passed,
12:27
Speaker 1: then it peeked out again, nearer this time, and so
12:31
Speaker 1: human that it startled me. Mose raised his head and
12:34
Speaker 1: growled low in his throat and sniffed the keen air. Jones.
12:39
Speaker 1: Jones called, reaching over to touch the old hunter. He
12:43
Speaker 1: woke at once, with the clear headedness of the light sleeper.
12:47
Speaker 1: I heard the cry of some beast, I said, And
12:50
Speaker 1: it was so weird, so strange. I want to know
12:52
Speaker 1: what it was. Such a long silence ensued that I
12:55
Speaker 1: began to despair of hearing the cry again, when, with
12:58
Speaker 1: a suddenness which straightened the hair on my head, a
13:01
Speaker 1: wailing shriek exactly like a despairing woman might give in death.
13:06
Speaker 1: Agony split the night silence. It seemed right on us, cougar. Cougar,
13:12
Speaker 1: exclaimed Jones, Oh, what's up, queried Frank. Awakened by the dogs,
13:19
Speaker 1: The howling roused the rest of the party, and no
13:21
Speaker 1: doubt scared the cougar, for his womanish scream was not repeated.
13:26
Speaker 1: Then Jones got up and gathered his blankets in a roll.
13:31
Speaker 1: We're you using for now, asked Frank sleepily. I think
13:36
Speaker 1: that cougar just came up over the rim on a
13:39
Speaker 1: scouting hunt, and I'm going to go down to the
13:42
Speaker 1: head of the trail and stay there till morning. If
13:45
Speaker 1: he returns that way, I'll put him up a tree.
13:50
Speaker 1: With this, he unchained Sounder and Dawn and stalked off
13:53
Speaker 1: under the trees, looking like an Indian. Once the deep
13:57
Speaker 1: bay of Sounder rang out, Jones's sharp command followed, and
14:00
Speaker 1: then the familiar silence encompassed the forest and was broken
14:03
Speaker 1: no more. When he awoke, all was gray except toward
14:07
Speaker 1: the canyon, where the little bit of sky I saw
14:10
Speaker 1: through the pines glowed a delicate pink. I crawled out
14:13
Speaker 1: on the instant, got into my boots, and coat and
14:16
Speaker 1: kicked up the smoldering fire. Jim heard me and said, Shore,
14:21
Speaker 1: you're up early. I'm going to see the sunrise from
14:25
Speaker 1: the north rim of the Grand Canyon, said, and knew
14:28
Speaker 1: when I spoke that very few men, out of all
14:31
Speaker 1: the millions of travelers, had ever seen this, probably the
14:34
Speaker 1: most surpassingly beautiful pageant in the world. At most, only
14:38
Speaker 1: a few geologists, scientists, perhaps an artist or two, and
14:42
Speaker 1: horse wranglers, hunters and prospectors have ever reached the Rim
14:45
Speaker 1: on the north side, And these men crossing from Bright
14:49
Speaker 1: Angel or Mystic Spring trails on the south rim seldom
14:53
Speaker 1: or never got beyond Powell's plateau. The frost cracked under
14:58
Speaker 1: my boots like frail ice, and the bluebells peeked wanly
15:01
Speaker 1: from the white. When I reached the head of Clark's trail,
15:05
Speaker 1: it was just daylight, and there under a pine I
15:07
Speaker 1: found Jones rolled in his blankets, with Sounder and Mose
15:10
Speaker 1: asleep beside him. I turned without disturbing him, and went
15:14
Speaker 1: along the edge of the forest, but back a little
15:17
Speaker 1: distance from the rim wall. I saw deer off in
15:21
Speaker 1: the woods, and tarrying watched him throw up graceful heads
15:24
Speaker 1: and look and listen. The soft pink glow through the
15:28
Speaker 1: pines deepened to rose, and suddenly I caught a point
15:31
Speaker 1: of red fire. Then I hurried to the place I
15:34
Speaker 1: had named Singing cliffs, and keeping my eyes fast on
15:38
Speaker 1: the stone beneath me, crawled out on the very furthest point,
15:42
Speaker 1: drew a long, deep breath, and looked eastward. The awfulness
15:48
Speaker 1: of sudden death and the glory of heaven stunned me.
15:52
Speaker 1: The thing that had been mystery at twilight lay clear, pure,
15:56
Speaker 1: open in the rosy hue of dawn. Out the gates
16:00
Speaker 1: of the morning poured a light which glorified the palaces
16:04
Speaker 1: and pyramids, purged and purified the afternoon's inscrutable cliffs swept
16:09
Speaker 1: away the shadows of the messes, and bathed that broad,
16:14
Speaker 1: deep world of mighty mountains, stately spars of rock, sculptured cathedrals,
16:20
Speaker 1: and alabaster terraces in an artist stream of color. A
16:24
Speaker 1: pearl from Heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire
16:28
Speaker 1: into this chasm. A stream of opal flowed out of
16:33
Speaker 1: the sun to touch each peak, mesa dome, parapet, temple,
16:37
Speaker 1: and tower, cliff, and cleft into the new born life
16:42
Speaker 1: of another day. I sat here for a long time
16:45
Speaker 1: and knew that every second the scene changed, yet I
16:48
Speaker 1: could not tell how I knew. I sat high over
16:52
Speaker 1: a hole of broken, splintered, barren mountains. I knew I
16:55
Speaker 1: could see a hundred miles of the length of it,
16:58
Speaker 1: and eighteen miles of the width of it, and a
17:00
Speaker 1: mile of the depth of it, and the shafts and
17:03
Speaker 1: ray of rose light on a million glancing, many hued
17:07
Speaker 1: surfaces at once. But that knowledge was no help to me.
17:11
Speaker 1: I repeated a lot of meaningless superlatives to myself, and
17:14
Speaker 1: I found words inadequate and superfluous. The spectacle was too
17:19
Speaker 1: elusive and too great. It was life and death, heaven
17:23
Speaker 1: and hell. I tried to call up former favored views
17:27
Speaker 1: of mountain and sea, so as to compare them with this,
17:31
Speaker 1: but the memory pictures refused to come, even of my
17:35
Speaker 1: eyes closed. Then I returned to camp with unsettled, troubled mind,
17:39
Speaker 1: and was silent, wondering at the strange feeling burning within me.
17:44
Speaker 1: Jones talked about a visitor of the night before, and
17:48
Speaker 1: said the trail near where he had slept showed only
17:50
Speaker 1: one cougar track, and that led down to the canyon.
17:55
Speaker 1: It had surely been made, he thought by the beast
17:58
Speaker 1: we had heard. Jones signified his attention of chaining several
18:02
Speaker 1: of the hounds for the next few nights at the
18:05
Speaker 1: head of this trail, so if the cougar came up,
18:08
Speaker 1: they would scent him and let us know, from which
18:11
Speaker 1: it was evident that to chase a lion bound into
18:15
Speaker 1: the canyon and one bound out were two different things.
18:20
Speaker 1: The day passed lazily, with all of us resting on
18:22
Speaker 1: the warm, fragrant pine needled beds, or mending a rent
18:26
Speaker 1: in a coat, or working on some camp task impossible
18:30
Speaker 1: of commission on exciting days. About four o'clock I took
18:35
Speaker 1: my little rifle and walked off through the woods in
18:37
Speaker 1: the direction of the carcass where I had seen the
18:39
Speaker 1: gray wolf. Thinking it best to make a wide detour
18:43
Speaker 1: so as to face the wind, I circled till I
18:46
Speaker 1: felt the breeze was favorable to my enterprise, and then
18:49
Speaker 1: cautiously approached the hollow where the dead horse lay. Indian fashion,
18:53
Speaker 1: I slipped from tree to tree, a mode of forest
18:56
Speaker 1: travel not without its fascination and effectiveness, till I reached
19:00
Speaker 1: the height of a knoll beyond which I made sure
19:03
Speaker 1: was my objective point. On peeping out from behind the
19:07
Speaker 1: last pine I found, I had calculated pretty well, for
19:11
Speaker 1: there was the hollow, the big windfall, with its round
19:15
Speaker 1: starfish shaped roots exposed to the bright sun, and near
19:19
Speaker 1: that the carcass. Sure enough, pulling hard at it was
19:23
Speaker 1: the gray white wolf I recognized as my loafer, but
19:29
Speaker 1: he presented an exceedingly difficult shot. Backing down the ridge,
19:33
Speaker 1: I found a little way to come up behind another tree,
19:37
Speaker 1: from which I soon shifted to a fallen pine. Over
19:40
Speaker 1: this I peaked to get a splendid view of the wolf.
19:44
Speaker 1: He had stopped tugging at the horse and stood with
19:46
Speaker 1: his nose in the air. Surely could not have scented me,
19:50
Speaker 1: for the wind was strong from him to me. Neither
19:53
Speaker 1: could he ear my soft footfalls on the pine needles. Nevertheless,
19:57
Speaker 1: he was suspicious, loath spoil a picture, he made a
20:02
Speaker 1: risk of chance and waited. Besides, though I prided myself
20:05
Speaker 1: on being able to take a fair aim, I had
20:08
Speaker 1: no great hope that I could hit him at such
20:10
Speaker 1: a distance. Presently he returned to his feeding, but not
20:14
Speaker 1: for long. He soon raised his fine pointed head and
20:18
Speaker 1: trotted away a few yards, stopped to sniff again, then
20:22
Speaker 1: went back to his gruesome work. At this juncture, I
20:26
Speaker 1: noiselessly projected my rifle barrel over the log. I had, not, however,
20:31
Speaker 1: gotten the sights in line with him. When he trotted
20:33
Speaker 1: away reluctantly and ascended the knoll on his side of
20:37
Speaker 1: the hollow, I lost him, and had just begun sourly
20:41
Speaker 1: to call myself a mollycoddle hunter. When he reappeared. He
20:45
Speaker 1: halted in an open glade on the very crest of
20:48
Speaker 1: the knoll and stood still as a statue wolf, a
20:51
Speaker 1: white aspiring target against a dark green background. I could
20:57
Speaker 1: not stifle a rush of feeling, for I was a
21:00
Speaker 1: lover of the beautiful first and a hunter secondly. But
21:04
Speaker 1: I steadied down as the front sight moved into the notch,
21:08
Speaker 1: through which I saw the black and white of his
21:11
Speaker 1: shoulder spang. How the little Remington sang. I watched closely,
21:19
Speaker 1: ready to send five more missiles. After the gray beast.
21:22
Speaker 1: He jumped spasmodically in a half curve high in the
21:26
Speaker 1: air with a loosely hanging head, then dropped in a heap.
21:31
Speaker 1: I yelled like a boy ran down the hill up
21:34
Speaker 1: the other side of the hollow to find him stretched
21:36
Speaker 1: out dead, a small hole in his shoulder where the
21:39
Speaker 1: bullet had entered, a great one where it had come out.
21:44
Speaker 1: The job I made of skinning him lack some hundred
21:46
Speaker 1: degrees of perfection of my shot, but I accomplished it
21:50
Speaker 1: and returned to camp in triumph. Are I know you'd
21:54
Speaker 1: blunk him? Said Jim, very much pleased. I shot one
21:59
Speaker 1: the other day the same way, when he was feeding
22:02
Speaker 1: off a dead horse. Now that's a fine scan. Sure
22:06
Speaker 1: you cut through once or twice, but he's only half loaf.
22:10
Speaker 1: The other half is playing coyote. That accounts for his
22:14
Speaker 1: feeding on dead meat. My naturalist host and my scientific
22:18
Speaker 1: friend both remarked somewhat grumpily that I seemed to get
22:22
Speaker 1: the best of all the good things. I might have
22:25
Speaker 1: retaliated that I certainly had gotten the worst of all
22:27
Speaker 1: the bad jokes, but being generously happily over my prize,
22:33
Speaker 1: merely remarked, if you want fame, or wealth, or wolves,
22:37
Speaker 1: go out and hunt for them. Five o'clock supper left
22:41
Speaker 1: a good margin of day in which my thoughts reverted
22:44
Speaker 1: to the canyon I watched the purple shadows stealing out
22:47
Speaker 1: of their caverns and rolling up about the base of
22:50
Speaker 1: the maces. Jones came over to where I stood, and
22:53
Speaker 1: I persuaded him to walk with me along the rim wall.
22:56
Speaker 1: Twilight had stealthily advanced when we reached the Singing cliff,
23:00
Speaker 1: and we did not go out upon my promontory, but
23:04
Speaker 1: chose the more comfortable one nearer the wall. The night
23:08
Speaker 1: breeze had not sprung up yet, so the music of
23:10
Speaker 1: the cliffs was hushed. You cannot accept the theory of
23:14
Speaker 1: erosion to account for this chasm, I asked my companion,
23:18
Speaker 1: referring to a former conversation. A can for part of it.
23:23
Speaker 1: But what stumps me is the mountain range three thousand
23:26
Speaker 1: feet high crossing the desert in the canyon just above
23:29
Speaker 1: where we crossed the river. How did the river cut
23:32
Speaker 1: through that with the help the help of a split
23:35
Speaker 1: or earthquake. I'll admit that is a poser to me
23:41
Speaker 1: as well as to you. But I suppose Wallace could
23:45
Speaker 1: explain it as erosion. He claims his whole western country
23:49
Speaker 1: was once under water except the tips of the Sierra
23:52
Speaker 1: Nevada Mountains. There came an uplift of the earth's crust,
23:57
Speaker 1: and the great inland sea began to run out, presumably
24:00
Speaker 1: by way of the Colorado. In so doing, it cut
24:04
Speaker 1: out the upper canyon, this gorge eighteen miles wide. Then
24:08
Speaker 1: came a second uplift, giving the river a much greater
24:11
Speaker 1: impetus towards the sea, which cut out the second or
24:15
Speaker 1: marble canyon. Now, as to the mountain range crossing the
24:19
Speaker 1: canyon at right angles, it must have come with the
24:22
Speaker 1: second uplift. If so, did it damn the river back
24:26
Speaker 1: into another inland sea, And then we're down into that
24:30
Speaker 1: red perpendicular gorge we remember so well. Or was there
24:34
Speaker 1: a great break in the fold of granite which let
24:37
Speaker 1: the river continue on its way? Or was there at
24:41
Speaker 1: that particular point a softer stone like this limestone here
24:44
Speaker 1: which he rodes easily? You must ask somebody wiser than I. Well,
24:50
Speaker 1: let's not perplex our minds with its origin. It is,
24:53
Speaker 1: and that's enough for my mind. Ah. Listen, now you
24:57
Speaker 1: will hear my singing cliffs from the darkening shadows, murmurs
25:02
Speaker 1: rose on the softly rising wind. This strange music had
25:06
Speaker 1: a depressing influence, but it did not fill the heart
25:09
Speaker 1: with sorrow only touched it lightly, and when with the
25:13
Speaker 1: dying breeze the song died away, it left the lonely
25:17
Speaker 1: crags lonelier for its death. The last rosy gleam faded
25:21
Speaker 1: from the tip of points sublime, and as if that
25:24
Speaker 1: were a signal, and all the clefts and canyons below
25:28
Speaker 1: purple shadowy clouds marshaled their forces and began to sweep
25:33
Speaker 1: upon the battlements, to swing colossal wings into amphitheaters where
25:38
Speaker 1: gods might have warred slowly to enclose the magical sentinels.
25:42
Speaker 1: Night intervened and a moving, changing, silent chaos pulsated under
25:47
Speaker 1: the bright stars. How infinite all this is, how impossible
25:53
Speaker 1: to understand, I exclaimed to me. It's very simple, replied
25:58
Speaker 1: my comrade. The world is strange, but this canyon why
26:03
Speaker 1: we can see it all. I can't make out why
26:07
Speaker 1: people fuss over it. I only feel peace. Its only
26:11
Speaker 1: bold and beautiful, serene and silent. With the words of
26:16
Speaker 1: this quiet old plainsman, my sentimental passion shrank to the
26:21
Speaker 1: true appreciation of the scene self passed out of the
26:24
Speaker 1: recurring soft strains of cliffs song. I had been reveling
26:28
Speaker 1: in a species of indulgence, imagining. I was a great
26:32
Speaker 1: lover of nature, building poetical illusions over storm beaten peaks.
26:37
Speaker 1: The truth told by one who had lived fifty years
26:41
Speaker 1: in the solitudes, among the rugged mountains, under the dark trees,
26:44
Speaker 1: and by the sides of the lonely streams, was a
26:47
Speaker 1: simple interpretation of a spirit in harmony with the bold,
26:51
Speaker 1: the beautiful, the serene, the silent. He meant the grand
26:56
Speaker 1: Canyon was only a mood of nature, a bold promise,
27:00
Speaker 1: a beautiful record. He meant that mountains had sifted away
27:04
Speaker 1: in its dust. Yet the canyon was young. Man was nothing,
27:09
Speaker 1: So let him be humble. This cataclysm of the earth,
27:14
Speaker 1: this playground of a river, was not indestructible. It was
27:18
Speaker 1: only inevitable, as inevitable as nature itself. Millions of years
27:24
Speaker 1: in the bygone ages it had lain serene under a
27:27
Speaker 1: live moon. It would bask silent under a rayless sun
27:31
Speaker 1: in the outward edge of time. It taught simplicity, serenity, peace.
27:38
Speaker 1: The eye that saw only the strife, the war that decay,
27:41
Speaker 1: the ruin, or only the glory and the tragedy, saw
27:46
Speaker 1: not all the truth. It spoke simply, though its words
27:49
Speaker 1: were grand. My spirit is the spirit of time, of eternity,
27:54
Speaker 1: of God man as little, vain faunting listen tomorrow he
28:00
Speaker 1: shall be gone. Peace, Peace, end of Chapter thirteen.