Singing Cliffs 



was so well protected because in fighting, cougars 

 were most likely to bite and claw there. For that 

 matter, the whole skin was tough, tougher than 

 leather; and when it dried, it pulled all the horseshoe 

 nails out of the pine tree upon which we had it 

 stretched. 



About time for the sun to set, I strolled along the 

 rim wall to look into the canon. I was beginning to 

 feel something of its character and had growing 

 impressions. Dark purple smoke veiled the clefts 

 deep down between the mesas. I walked along to 

 where points of cliff ran out like capes and peninsulas, 

 all seamed, cracked, wrinkled, scarred and yellow 

 with age, with shattered, toppling ruins of rocks 

 ready at a touch to go thundering down. I could not 

 resist the temptation to crawl out to the farthest 

 point, even though I shuddered over the yard-wide 

 ridges; and when once seated on a bare promontory, 

 two hundred feet from the regular rim wall, I felt 

 isolated, marooned. 



The sun, a liquid red globe, had just touched its 

 under side to the pink cliffs of Utah, and fired a 

 crimson flood of light over the wonderful mountains, 

 plateaus, escarpments, mesas, domes and turrets of 

 the gorge. The rim wall of Powell s Plateau was 

 a thin streak of fire; the timber above like grass of 



gold; and the long slopes below shaded from bright 



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