“Where do we wash?” questioned Walter.

“You will have to take a sun bath,” answered the guide with a twinkle.  “There isn’t any water near this place.  We will find water for the stock later in the morning.”

“But where is the Canyon?” wondered Tad.

“You’re at it.”

“I don’t see anything that looks like a canyon,” scoffed Ned.

“No, this is a level plateau,” returned Tad.  “However, I guess Dad knows what he is talking about.  I for one am more interested in what I smell just now than anything else.”

Chunky sniffed the air.

“Well, it will take more than a smell to satisfy me this morning,” declared Chunky, wrinkling his nose.

“This is my day to cook,” called Tad.  “Why didn’t you let me get the breakfast, Mr. Nance?”

“I’m doing the cooking this morning.  I’ve had a long walk and feel fine, so I decided to be the cook, the wrangler and the whole outfit this morning.  How do you feel, boys?”

“Fine!” chorused the Pony Riders.  “But we thought we should see the Canyon when we woke up this morning.”

A quizzical smile twitched the corners of Dad’s mouth.  Tad saw that the guide had something of a surprise for them.  The lad asked no further questions.

Breakfast finished, the boys cleared away the dishes, packing everything as if for a continuation of their journey, which they fully expected to make.

A slight rise of ground lay a few rods ahead of them.  Tad started to stroll that way.  He halted as a party of men and women were seen approaching from the direction of El Tovar, where the hotel was located.

“Now, gentlemen, you may walk along,” nodded the guide, smiling broadly.

“Which way?” asked the Professor.

“Follow the crowd you see there.”

They saw the party step up to the rise, then a woman’s scream smote their ears.  Tad, thinking something had occurred, dashed forward.

He reached the level plateau on the rise, where his companions saw him halt suddenly, throwing both arms above his head.

The boys started on a run, followed by the professor, who by this time was a little excited.

Then all at once the glorious panorama burst upon them.  There at their very feet lay the Grand Canyon.  Below them lay the wonder of the world, and more than five thousand feet down, like a slender silver thread, rippled the Colorado.

The first sight of the Canyon affects different persons differently.  It overwhelmed the Pony Rider Boys, leaving them speechless.  They shrank back as they gazed into the awful chasm at their feet and into which they might have plunged had the hour been earlier, for it had burst upon them almost with the suddenness of the crack of a rifle.

They had thought to see mountains.  There were none.  What they saw was really a break in the level plateau.  From where they stood they looked almost straight down into the abyss for something more than a mile.  Gazing straight ahead they saw to the other side of the chasm twelve miles away.  To the right and to the left their gaze reached more than twenty miles in each direction.