The trees thinned out a short distance back, and
the canyon widened as it receded from the river. A half mile back from
the river was the old slab building that had served as headquarters
for the campers. Here the canyon divided, one containing the small
stream heading in the high walls to the southeast; while the other
branch ran directly south, heading near the railroad at the little
flag-station of Peach Springs, twenty-three miles distant.
It was flat-bottomed, growing wider and more valley-like with every
mile, but not especially interesting to one who had seen the glory of
all the canyons. Floods had spoiled what had once been a very passable
stage road, dropping 4000 feet in twenty miles, down to the very
depths of the Grand Canyon. Some cattle, driven down by the snows,
were sunning themselves near the building. Our appearance filled them
with alarm, and they "high tailed it" to use a cattle man's
expression, scampering up the rocky slopes.
A deer's track was seen in a snow-drift away from the river. On the
sloping walls in the more open sections of this valley grew the
stubby-thorned chaparral. The hackberry and the first specimens of the
palo verde were found in this vicinity. The mesquite trees seen at the
mouth of the canyon were real trees--about the size of a large apple
tree--not the small bushes we had seen at the Little Colorado. All the
growth was changing as we neared the lower altitudes and the mouth of
the Grand Canyon, being that of the hot desert, which had found this
artery or avenue leading to the heart of the rocky plateaus and had
pushed its way into this foreign land.
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