THE SILENT RIVER 



75 



and the shaking of the ground as though an 

 earthquake were passing. After it is all done 

 with and gone, with no trace of wave or foam 

 remaining, miles away down the Gulf the red 

 river slowly rises in little streams through the 

 blue to the surface. There it spreads fan-like 

 over the top of the sea, and finally mingles with 

 and is lost in the greater body. 



The river is no more. It has gone down to 

 its blue tomb in the Gulf the fairest tomb that 

 ever river knew. Something of serenity in the 

 Gulf waters, something of the monumental in 

 the bordering mountains, something of the un- 

 known and the undiscovered over all, make it a 

 fit resting-place for the majestic Colorado. The 

 lonely stream that so shunned contact with 

 man, that dug its bed thousands of feet in the 

 depths of pathless canyons, and trailed its length 

 across trackless deserts, sought out instinctively 

 a point of disappearance far from the madding 

 crowd. The blue waters of the Gulf, the 

 beaches of shell, the red, red mountains standing 

 with their feet in the sea, are still far removed 

 from civilization's touch. There are no towns 

 or roads or people by those shores, there are no 

 ships upon those seas, there are no dust and 

 smoke of factories in those skies. The Indians 



