Page 14 (1/1)

At this juncture Jean in his earnestness and quite without thought grasped her hand The contact checked the flow of his speech and suddenly irl did nota deep breath and trying to see through his bewilderined he felt a faint, war, she was friendless, she was human By this hand in his Jean felt more than ever the loneliness of her Then, just as he was about to speak again, she pulled her hand free

"Heah's the Rim," she said, in her quaint Southern drawl "An' there's Y'ur Tonto Basin"

Jean had been intent only upon the girl He had kept step beside her without taking note of as ahead of him At her words he looked up expectantly, to be struckof an immense abyss beneath him As he looked afar he saw a black basin of tiazed upon, a hundred e, hazy purple against the sky It seeulf surrounded on three sides by bold, undulating lines of peaks, and on his side by a wall so high that he felt lifted aloft on the run of the sky

"Southeast y'u see the Sierra Anchas," said the girl pointing "That notch in the range is the pass where sheep are driven to Phoenix an' Maricopa Those big rough mountains to the south are the Mazatzals Round to the west is the Four Peaks Range An' y'u're standin' on the Rim"

Jean could not see at first just what the Rirasped this reues a colossal red and yelloall, a ra ard Grand and bold were the pro out over the void They ran toward the westering sun Sweeping and i darkly spotted down to e into the black tied manifestation of nature's depths and upheavals He was held ht was educated to judge heights and depths and distances This wall upon which he stood sheered precipitously down, so far that it ed into red-slided, cedar-greened slopes running down and down into gorges choked with forests, and fro waters Slope after slope, ridge beyond ridge, canyoninto canyon--so the tre depths, a wilderness across which travel seemed impossible