was faint and apparently worn by a single pair of feet as a shorter and
private cut from some more travelled path. It was well for the stranger
that he had a keen eye or he would have lost it; it was equally
fortunate that he had a mountaineering instinct, for a sudden profound
deepening of the blue mist seen dimly through the leaves before him
caused him to slacken his steps. The trail bent abruptly to the right;
a gulf fully two thousand feet deep was at his feet! It was the Great
Canyon.

At the first glance it seemed so narrow that a rifle-shot could have
crossed its tranquil depths; but a second look at the comparative size
of the trees on the opposite mountain convinced him of his error. A
nearer survey of the abyss also showed him that instead of its walls
being perpendicular they were made of successive ledges or terraces to
the valley below. Yet the air was so still, and the outlines so clearly
cut, that they might have been only the reflections of the mountains
around him cast upon the placid mirror of a lake. The spectacle arrested
him, as it arrested all men, by some occult power beyond the mere
attraction of beauty or magnitude; even the teamster never passed
it without the tribute of a stone or broken twig tossed into its
immeasurable profundity.

Reluctantly leaving the spot, the stranger turned with the trail that
now began to skirt its edge. This was no easy matter, as the undergrowth
was very thick, and the foliage dense to the perilous brink of the
precipice. He walked on, however, wondering why Bradley had chosen so
circuitous and dangerous a route to his house, which naturally would
be some distance back from the canyon. At the end of ten minutes'
struggling through the "brush," the trail became vague, and, to all
appearances, ended. Had he arrived? The thicket was as dense as before;