. I tried to follow along the sand-bar, but found it
impossible. I encouraged him by yelling. He drifted far below, stranded
on an island, crossed it, and plunged in again, to make shore almost
out of my sight. And when at last I got to dry sand, there was Ranger,
wet and disheveled, but consciously proud and happy.

After lunch we entered upon the seventy-mile stretch from the Little to
the Big Colorado.

Imagination had pictured the desert for me as a vast, sandy plain, flat
and monotonous. Reality showed me desolate mountains gleaming bare in
the sun, long lines of red bluffs, white sand dunes, and hills of blue
clay, areas of level ground--in all, a many-hued, boundless world in
itself, wonderful and beautiful, fading all around into the purple haze
of deceiving distance.

Thin, clear, sweet, dry, the desert air carried a languor, a
dreaminess, tidings of far-off things, and an enthralling promise. The
fragrance of flowers, the beauty and grace of women, the sweetness of
music, the mystery of life--all seemed to float on that promise. It was
the air breathed by the lotus-eaters, when they dreamed, and wandered
no more.

Beyond the Little Colorado, we began to climb again. The sand was
thick; the horses labored; the drivers shielded their faces. The dogs
began to limp and lag. Ranger had to be taken into a wagon; and then,
one by one, all of the other dogs except Moze. He refused to ride, and
trotted along with his head down.

Far to the front the pink cliffs, the ragged mesas, the dark, volcanic
spurs of the Big Colorado stood up and beckoned us onward. But they
were a far hundred miles across the shifting sands, and baked day, and
ragged rocks. Always in the rear rose the San Francisco peaks, cold and
pure, startlingly clear and close in the rare atmosphere.

We camped near another water hole, located in a deep, yellow-colored
gorge, crumbling to pieces, a ruin of rock, and silent as the grave. In
the bottom of the canyon was a pool of water, covered with green scum.
My thirst was effectually quenched by the mere sight of it. I slept
poorly, and lay for hours watching the great stars. The silence was
painfully oppressive. If Jones had not begun to give a respectable
imitation of the exhaust pipe on a steamboat, I should have been
compelled to shout aloud, or get up; but this snoring would have
dispelled anything. The morning came gray and cheerless. I got up stiff
and sore, with a tongue like a rope.

All