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Sand dunes and wastes of black lava, dry lake beds and cone-shaped extinct volcanoes, with the ragged crater mouths gaping, low ranges of yellow cedar-dotted hills, valleys of purple, and green forests on the mountain slopes all these in endless variety were new to the cowboy of the plains. Water was conspicuous for its absence, though at long intervals of travel he crossed a stream.
A hard ride down the cañon for five miles or more, then up a steep break and across cedar-dotted mesas, brought the party out to the Moqui trail shortly after mid-morning. Lennon frowned at the clear-marked trail. His plans as first made had been to cut and run for the railway the moment he should reach the main trail.
Bare, yellow, cedar-dotted slopes, apparently level, so gradual was the ascent, stretched away to a dense ragged line of forest that rose black over range after range, at last to fail near the bare summit of a magnificent mountain, sunrise-flushed against the blue sky. "Oh, beautiful!" cried Bo. "But they ought to be called Black Mountains."
"Well, if they are the noble red people, my illusions are dispelled." She did not look out of the window again, not even when the brakeman called out the remarkable name of Albuquerque. Next day Carley's languid attention quickened to the name of Arizona, and to the frowning red walls of rock, and to the vast rolling stretches of cedar-dotted land. Nevertheless, it affronted her.
Five miles below West Fork a road branched off and climbed the left side of the canyon. It was a rather steep road, long and zigzaging, and full of rocks and ruts. Carley did not enjoy ascending it, but she preferred the going up to coming down. It took half an hour to climb. Once up on the flat cedar-dotted desert she was met, full in the face, by a hot dusty wind coming from the south.
Slone looked away to the west, down the trail taken by his comrades, but he saw nothing moving against that cedar-dotted waste. "Good-by," he said, and he spoke as if he was saying good-by to more than comrades. "I reckon I won't see Sevier Village soon again an' maybe never," he soliloquized.
Slone looked away to the west, down the trail taken by his comrades, but he saw nothing moving against that cedar-dotted waste. "Good-by," he said, and he spoke as if he was saying good-by to more than comrades. "I reckon I won't see Sevier Village soon again an' maybe never," he soliloquized.
The thing there the infinitude of open sand and rock was beautiful, wonderful, even glorious. She looked again. Steep black-cindered slope, with its soft gray patches of grass, sheered down and down, and out in rolling slope to merge upon a cedar-dotted level. Nothing moved below, but a red-tailed hawk sailed across her vision.
She dropped the pony's reins and started off at a jog across the hot, level, cedar-dotted top of the mesa. Lennon galloped ahead of her, tied the pony, and ran on afoot. Carmena copied the maneuver. In this manner, taking turn about, they covered the ground almost as fast as if both had been mounted.
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