"I want you to see the Navajos cross the river," said Naab.
Hare accompanied him out through the grove to a road that flanked the
first rise of the red wall; they followed this for half a mile, and
turning a corner came into an unobstructed view. A roar of rushing
waters had prepared Hare, but the river that he saw appalled him. It was
red and swift; it slid onward like an enormous slippery snake; its
constricted head raised a crest of leaping waves, and disappeared in a
dark chasm, whence came a bellow and boom.
"That opening where she jumps off is the head of the Grand Canyon," said
Naab. "It's five hundred feet deep there, and thirty miles below it's
five thousand. Oh, once in, she tears in a hurry! Come, we turn up the
bank here."
Hare could find no speech, and he felt immeasurably small. All that he
had seen in reaching this isolated spot was dwarfed in comparison. This
"Crossing of the Fathers," as Naab called it, was the gateway of the
desert. This roar of turbulent waters was the sinister monotone of the
mighty desert symphony of great depths, great heights, great reaches.
On a sandy strip of bank the Navajos had halted.
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