ACROSS THE NAVAJO DESERT 47 



while Navajo Mountain loomed up under it. 

 When we rose, we saw the pale dawn turn blood- 

 red; and shortly after sunrise we started for 

 our third and final day's journey to the Bridge. 

 For some ten miles the track was an ordinary 

 rough mountain trail. Then we left all our 

 pack-animals except two little mules, and be- 

 gan the hard part of our trip. From this point 

 on the trail was that followed by Wetherill on 

 his various trips to the Bridge, and it can per- 

 haps fairly be called dangerous in two or three 

 places, at least for horses. Wetherill has been 

 with every party that has visited the Bridge 

 from the time of its discovery by white men 

 four years ago. On that occasion he was with 

 two parties, their guide being the Ute who was 

 at this time with us. Mrs. Wetherill has made 

 an extraordinarily sympathetic study of the 

 Navajos and to a less extent of the Utes; she 

 knows, and feelingly understands, their tradi- 

 tions and ways of thought, and speaks their 

 tongue fluently; and it was she who first got 

 from the Indians full knowledge of the Bridge. 

 The hard trail began with a twenty minutes' 

 crossing of a big mountain dome of bare sheet 

 rock. Over this we led our horses, up, down, 

 and along the sloping sides, which fell away 

 into cliflFs that were scores and even hundreds 



