ugh on the previous
night. Such a vista of wonderful peaks as lay before them none of the
Pony Riders ever had gazed upon.

To the west lay the San Francisco Peaks, those ever-present landmarks
of northern Arizona. To the south the boys looked off over a vast area
of forest and hills, while to the east in the foreground were grouped
many superb cinder cones, similar to the one on which they were
standing, though not nearly so high. Lava beds, rugged and barren,
reached out like fingers to the edge of the plateau as if reaching for
the far-away painted desert.

"Where is the Canyon?" asked Tad in a low voice.

"Yonder," said Dad, pointing to the north over an unbroken stretch of
forest. There in the dim distance lay the walls of the Grand Canyon,
the stupendous expanse of the ramparts of the Canyon stretching as far
as the eye could see.

"How far away are they?" asked Tad.

"More than forty miles," answered Dad. "You wait till we get to the
edge. You can't tell anything about those buttes now."

"What is a butte---how did they happen to be called that?" asked Walter.

"A butte is a butte," answered the guide.

"A butte is a bump on the landscape," interjected Stacy.

"A butte is a mound of earth or stone worn away by erosion," answered
the Professor, with an assurance that forbade any one to question the
correctness of his statement.

"Yes, sir," murmured the Pony Rider Boys. "A wart on the hand of fair
Nature, as it were," added Chunky under his breath.

"Come, we must be on our way," urged Dad. "We want to make half the
distance to the Canyon before night. I reckon the pack train will have
gone on. We'll have to live on what we have in our saddle bags till
we catch up with the train, which I reckon we'll do hard onto noon."

No great effort was required to descend Sunset Mountain. It was one
long slide and roll. The boys screamed with delight as they saw the
dignified Professor coasting and taking headers down the cinder-covered
mountain.

By this time the clothes of the explorers had become well dried out in
the hot sun. When they reached the camp they found that the pack train
had long since broken camp and gone on.

"Where are the ponies?" cried Walter, looking about.

"I'll get them," answered Dad, circling the camp a few times to pick up
the trail.

It will be remembered that the animals had been hobbled on the previous
afternoon and turned loose to graze. Dad found the trail and