He rounded an abrupt corner to have the roar suddenly fill his ears, to see the lane extend straight to a ragged vent, and beyond that, at some distance, a dark, ragged, bulging wall, like iron.  As he hurried forward he was surprised to find that the noise did not increase.  Here it kept a strange uniformity of tone and volume.  The others of the party passed out of the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco in advance of Shefford, and when he reached it they were grouped upon a bank of sand.  A dark-red canyon yawned before them, and through it slid the strangest river Shefford had ever seen.  At first glance he imagined the strangeness consisted of the dark-red color of the water, but at the second he was not so sure.  All the others, except Nas Ta Bega, eyed the river blankly, as if they did not know what to think.  The roar came from round a huge bulging wall downstream.  Up the canyon, half a mile, at another turn, there was a leaping rapid of dirty red-white waves and the sound of this, probably, was drowned in the unseen but nearer rapid.

“This is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado,” said Shefford.  “We’ve come out at the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco. . . .  And now to wait for Joe Lake!”

They made camp on a dry, level sand-bar under a shelving wall.  Nas Ta Bega collected a pile of driftwood to be used for fire, and then he took the mustangs back up the side canyon to find grass for them.  Lassiter appeared unusually quiet, and soon passed from weary rest on the sand to deep slumber.  Fay and Jane succumbed to an exhaustion that manifested itself the moment relaxation set in, and they, too, fell asleep.  Shefford patrolled the long strip of sand under the wall, and watched up the river for Joe Lake.  The Indian returned and went along the river, climbed over the jutting, sharp slopes that reached into the water, and passed out of sight up-stream toward the rapid.

Shefford had a sense that the river and the canyon were too magnificent to be compared with others.  Still, all his emotions and sensations had been so wrought upon, he seemed not to have any left by which he might judge of what constituted the difference.  He would wait.  He had a grim conviction that before he was safely out of this earth-riven crack he would know.  One thing, however, struck him, and it was that up the canyon, high over the lower walls, hazy and blue, stood other walls, and beyond and above them, dim in purple distance, upreared still other walls.  The haze and the blue and the purple meant great distance, and, likewise, the height seemed incomparable.

The red river attracted him most.  Since this was the medium by which he must escape with his party, it was natural that it absorbed him, to the neglect of the gigantic cliffs.  And the more he watched the river, studied it, listened to it, imagined its nature, its power, its restlessness, the more he dreaded it.  As the hours of the afternoon wore away, and he strolled along and rested on the banks, his