Tales of Lonely Trails | Page 7

ponder on what had formed it--to reflect
upon its meaning as to age and force of nature. Yet it seemed that all I
could do was to see. White stars hung along the dark curved line. The
rim of the arch appeared to shine. The moon was up there somewhere.
The far side of the canyon was now a blank black wall. Over its
towering rim showed a pale glow. It brightened. The shades in the
canyon lightened, then a white disk of moon peeped over the dark line.
The bridge turned to silver.
It was then that I became aware of the presence of Nas ta Bega. Dark,
silent, statuesque, with inscrutable face uplifted, with all that was
spiritual of the Indian suggested by a somber and tranquil knowledge of
his place there, he represented to me that which a solitary figure of
human life represents in a great painting. Nonnezoshe needed life, wild
life, life of its millions of years--and here stood the dark and silent
Indian.
Long afterward I walked there alone, to and fro, under the bridge. The
moon had long since crossed the streak of star-fired blue above, and the
canyon was black in shadow. At times a current of wind, with all the
strangeness of that strange country in its moan, rushed through the
great stone arch. At other times there was silence such as I imagined
might have dwelt deep in the center of the earth. And again an owl
hooted, and the sound was nameless. It had a mocking echo. An echo
of night, silence, gloom, melancholy, death, age, eternity!
The Indian lay asleep with his dark face upturned, and the other
sleepers lay calm and white in the starlight. I seemed to see in them the
meaning of life and the past--the illimitable train of faces that had
shone under the stars. There was something nameless in that canyon,
and whether or not it was what the Indian embodied in the great

Nonnezoshe, or the life of the present, or the death of the ages, or the
nature so magnificently manifested in those silent, dreaming, waiting
walls--the truth was that there was a spirit.
I did sleep a few hours under Nonnezoshe, and when I awoke the tip of
the arch was losing its cold darkness and beginning to shine. The sun
had just risen high enough over some low break in the wall to reach the
bridge. I watched. Slowly, in wondrous transformation, the gold and
blue and rose and pink and purple blended their hues, softly, mistily,
cloudily, until once more the arch was a rainbow.
I realized that long before life had evolved upon the earth this bridge
had spread its grand arch from wall to wall, black and mystic at night,
transparent and rosy in the sunrise, at sunset a flaming curve limned
against the heavens. When the race of man had passed it would,
perhaps, stand there still. It was not for many eyes to see. The tourist,
the leisurely traveler, the comfort-loving motorist would never behold
it. Only by toil, sweat, endurance and pain could any man ever look at
Nonnezoshe. It seemed well to realize that the great things of life had to
be earned. Nonnezoshe would always be alone, grand, silent, beautiful,
unintelligible; and as such I bade it a mute, reverent farewell.
CHAPTER II
COLORADO TRAILS
Riding and tramping trails would lose half their charm if the motive
were only to hunt and to fish. It seems fair to warn the reader who
longs to embark upon a bloody game hunt or a chronicle of fishing
records that this is not that kind of story. But it will be one for those
who love horses and dogs, the long winding dim trails, the wild flowers
and the dark still woods, the fragrance of spruce and the smell of
camp-fire smoke. And as well for those who love to angle in brown
lakes or rushing brooks or chase after the baying hounds or stalk the
stag on his lonely heights.
[Illustration: PACK HORSES ON A SAGE SLOPE IN COLORADO]

We left Denver on August twenty-second over the Moffet road and had
a long wonderful ride through the mountains. The Rockies have a
sweep, a limitless sweep, majestic and grand. For many miles we
crossed no streams, and climbed and wound up barren slopes. Once
across the divide, however, we descended into a country of black
forests and green valleys. Yampa, a little hamlet with a past prosperity,
lay in the wide valley of the Bear River. It was picturesque but idle, and
a better name for it would have been Sleepy Hollow. The main and
only street was very wide and dusty, bordered by old board walks and
vacant stores. It seemed a deserted street