Zane Grey

The Last of the Plainsmen Zane Grey

After a much-needed rest at Emmett's, we bade good-by to him and his hospitable family, andunder the guidance of his man once more took to the wind-swept trail. We pursued a southwesterlycourse now, following the lead of the craggy red wall that stretched on and on for hundreds of milesinto Utah. The desert, smoky and hot, fell away to the left, and in the foreground a dark, irregularline marked the Grand Canyon cutting through the plateau. The wind whipped in from the vast, open expanse, and meeting an obstacle in the red wall, turned north and raced past us. Jones's hat blew off, stood on its rim, and rolled. It kept on rolling, thirty miles an hour, more or less; so fast, at least, that we were a long time catching up to it with ateam of horses. Possibly we never would have caught it had not a stone checked its flight. Furthermanifestation of the power of the desert wind surrounded us on all sides. It had hollowed out hugestones from the cliffs, and tumbled them to the plain below; and then, sweeping sand and gravel lowacross the desert floor, had cut them deeply, until they rested on slender pedestals, thus sculptoringgrotesque and striking monuments to the marvelous persistence of this element of nature. Late that afternoon, as we reached the height of the plateau, Jones woke up and shouted: "Ha!there's Buckskin!"Far southward lay a long, black mountain, covered with patches of shining snow. I could followthe zigzag line of the Grand Canyon splitting the desert plateau, and saw it disappear in the hazeround the end of the mountain. From this I got my first clear impression of the topography of thecountry surrounding our objective point. Buckskin mountain ran its blunt end eastward to theCanyon-in fact, formed a hundred miles of the north rim. As it was nine thousand feet high it stillheld the snow, which had occasioned our lengthy desert ride to get back of the mountain. I couldsee the long slopes rising out of the desert to meet the timber. As we bowled merrily down grade I noticed that we were no longer on stony ground, and that alittle scant silvery grass had made its appearance. Then little branches of green, with a blue flower, smiled out of the clayish sa