And so a cavalry
escort was with us for a mile, till we got to a mighty hill
strewn with moss agates, and everybody had to jump out and pant
in that thin air. But how intoxicating it was! The old lady from
Chicago ducked like an emancipated hen as she scuttled about the
road, cramming pieces of rock into her reticule. She sent me
fifty yards down to the hill-side to pick up a piece of broken
bottle which she insisted was moss agate.
"I've some o' that at home, an' they shine. Yes, you go get it,
young man."
As we climbed the long path the road grew viler and viler till it
became, without disguise, the bed of a torrent; and just when
things were at their rockiest we nearly fell into a little
sapphire lake - but never sapphire was so blue - called Mary's
Lake; and that between eight and nine thousand feet above the
sea.
Afterward, grass downs, all on a vehement slope, so that the
buggy, following the new-made road, ran on the two off-wheels
mostly till we dipped head-first into a ford, climbed up a cliff,
raced along down, dipped again, and pulled up dishevelled at
"Larry's" for lunch and an hour's rest.
Then we lay on the grass and laughed with sheer bliss of being
alive. This have I known once in Japan, once on the banks of the
Columbia, what time the salmon came in and California howled, and
once again in the Yellowstone by the light of the eyes of the
maiden from New Hampshire. Four little pools lay at my elbow,
one was of black water (tepid), one clear water (cold), one clear
water (hot), one red water (boiling). My newly washed
handkerchief covered them all, and we two marvelled as children
marvel.
"This evening we shall do the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,"
said the maiden.
"Together?" said I; and she said, "Yes."
The sun was beginning to sink when we heard the roar of falling
waters and came to a broad river along whose banks we ran. And
then - I might at a pinch describe the infernal regions, but not
the other place. The Yellowstone River has occasion to run
through a gorge about eight miles long. To get to the bottom of
the gorge it makes two leaps, one of about one hundred and twenty
and the other of three hundred feet. I investigated the upper or
lesser fall, which is close to the hotel.
Up to that time nothing particular happens to the
Yellowstone - its banks being only rocky, rather steep, and
plentifully adorned with pines.
At the falls it comes round a corner, green, solid, ribbed with a
little foam, and not more than thirty yards wide. Then it goes
over, still green, and rather more solid than before. After a
minute or two, you, sitting upon a rock directly above the drop,
begin to understand that something has occurred; that the river
has jumped between solid cliff walls, and that the gentle froth
of water lapping the sides of the gorge below is really the
outcome of great waves.
And the river yells aloud; but the cliffs do not allow the yells
to escape.
That inspection began with curiosity and finished in terror, for
it seemed that the whole world was sliding in chrysolite from
under my feet. I followed with the others round the corner to
arrive at the brink of the canyon. We had to climb up a nearly
perpendicular ascent to begin with, for the ground rises more
than the river drops. Stately pine woods fringe either lip of
the gorge, which is the gorge of the Yellowstone. You'll find all
about it in the guide books.
All that I can say is that without warning or preparation I
looked into a gulf seventeen hundred feet deep, with eagles and
fish-hawks circling far below. And the sides of that gulf were
one wild welter of color - crimson, emerald, cobalt, ochre, amber,
honey splashed with port wine, snow white, vermilion, lemon, and
silver gray in wide washes. The sides did not fall sheer, but
were graven by time, and water, and air into monstrous heads of
kings, dead chiefs - men and women of the old time. So far below
that no sound of its strife could reach us, the Yellowstone River
ran a finger-wide strip of jade green.
The sunlight took those wondrous walls and gave fresh hues to
those that nature had already laid there.
Evening crept through the pines that shadowed us, but the full
glory of the day flamed in that canyon as we went out very
cautiously to a jutting piece of rock - blood-red or pink it
was - that overhung the deepest deeps of all.
Now I know what it is to sit enthroned amid the clouds of sunset
as the spirits sit in Blake's pictures. Giddiness took away all
sensation of touch or form, but the sense of blinding color
remained.
When I reached the mainland again I had sworn that I had been
floating.
The maid from New Hampshire said no word for a very long time.
Then she quoted poetry, which was perhaps the best thing she
could have done.
"And to think that this show-place has been going on all these
days an' none of we ever saw it," said the old lady from Chicago,
with an acid glance at her husband.
"No, only the Injians," said he, unmoved; and the maiden and I
laughed.
Inspiration is fleeting, beauty is vain, and the power of the
mind for wonder limited. Though the shining hosts themselves had
risen choiring from the bottom of the gorge, they would not have
prevented her papa and one baser than he from rolling stones down
those stupendous rainbow-washed slides.
