Such a wonderful and perfect little river, with water clear as
air and cold as ice, flowing over a bed of smooth granite, here slipping
noiselessly down long slopes of rock like thin films of glass, there
deepening into pools of translucent blue-green like aqua-marine or beryl,
again plunging down in mimic waterfalls, a sheet of iridescent foam. The
sound of its rush and its ripple was like a laugh. Never was such happy
water, Clover thought, as it curved and bent and swayed this way and that
on its downward course as if moved by some merry, capricious instinct,
like a child dancing as it goes. Regiments or great ferns grew along its
banks, and immense thickets of wild roses of all shades, from deep
Jacqueminot red to pale blush-white. Here and there rose a lonely spike of
yucca, and in the little ravines to right and left grew in the crevices of
the rocks clumps of superb straw-colored columbines four feet high.
Looking up, Clover saw above the tree-tops strange pinnacles and spires
and obelisks which seemed air-hung, of purple-red and orange-tawny and
pale pinkish gray and terra cotta, in which the sunshine and the
cloud-shadows broke in a multiplicity of wonderful half-tints. Above them
was the dazzling blue of the Colorado sky. She drew a long, long breath.
"So this is a canyon," she said. "How glad I am that I have lived to see
one."
"Yes, this is a canyon," Dr.
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