three tents, or rather three canvas houses, with wooden half-walls; and
they were spick-and-span inside and out, and had glass windows in them
and doors and matched wooden floors. The one that was a bedroom had gay
Navajo blankets on the floor, and a stove in it, and a little bureau,
and a washstand with white towels and good lathery soap. And there were
two beds--not cots or bunks, but regular beds--with wire springs and
mattresses and white sheets and pillowslips. They were not veteran
sheets and vintage pillowslips either, but clean and spotless ones. The
mess tent was provided with a table with a clean cloth to go over it,
and there were china dishes and china cups and shiny knives, forks and
spoons. Every scrap of this equipment had been brought down from the top
on burro packs. The Grand Canon is scenically artistic, but it is a
non-producing district. And outside there was a corral for the mules; a
canvas storehouse; hitching stakes for the burros; a Dutch oven, and a
little forge where the guides sometimes shoe a mule. They aren't
blacksmiths; they merely have to be. Bill was in charge of the camp--a
dark, rangy, good-looking young leading man of a cowboy, wearing his
blue shirt and his red neckerchief with an air. He spoke with the soft
Texas drawl and in his way was as competent as Johnny.

The sun, which had been winking farewells to us over the rim above,
dropped out of sight as suddenly as though it had fallen into a well.
From the bottom the shadows went slanting along the glooming walls of
the gorges, swallowing up the yellow patches of sunlight that still
lingered near the top like blacksnakes swallowing eggs. Every second the
colors shifted and changed; what had been blue a moment before was now
purple and in another minute would be a velvety black. A little lost
ghost of an echo stole out of a hole and went straying up and down,
feebly mocking our remarks and making them sound cheap and tawdry.

Then the new moon showed as a silver fish, balancing on its tail and
arching itself like a hooked skipjack. In a purpling sky the stars
popped out like pinpricks and the peace that passes all understanding
came over us. I wish to take advantage of this opportunity to say that,
in my opinion, David Belasco has never done anything in the way of
scenic effects to beat a moonrise in the Grand Canon.

I reckon we might have been there until now--my companion and I--soaking
our souls in the unutterable beauty of th