The men rode easily, with no thought to
the way nor care for the footing. The air came back sharp
against our faces. The warm blood stirred by the rush flowed
more rapidly. We experienced a delightful glow. Of the morning
cold only the very tips of our fingers and the ends of our noses
retained a remnant. Already the sun was shining low and level
across the plains. The shadows of the canons modelled the
hitherto flat surfaces of the mountains.
After a time we came to some low hills helmeted with the outcrop
of a rock escarpment. Hitherto they had seemed a termination of
Mount Graham, but now, when we rode around them, we discovered
them to be separated from the range by a good five miles of
sloping plain. Later we looked back and would have sworn them
part of the Dos Cabesas system, did we not know them to be at
least eight miles' distant from that rocky rampart. It is always
that way in Arizona. Spaces develop of whose existence you had
not the slightest intimation. Hidden in apparently plane
surfaces are valleys and prairies. At one sweep of the eye you
embrace the entire area of an eastern State; but nevertheless the
reality as you explore it foot by foot proves to be infinitely
more than the vision has promised.
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