Singing Cliffs 



came to my ears. I almost thought I was in a dream. 

 But the canon, now blood-red, was there in over 

 whelming reality, a profound, solemn, gloomy thing, 

 but real. The wind blew stronger, and then I was 

 listening to a sad, sweet song, which lulled as the 

 wind lulled. I realized at once that the sound was 

 caused by the wind blowing into the peculiar forma 

 tions of the cliffs. It changed, softened, shaded, 

 mellowed, but it was always sad. It rose from low, 

 tremulous, sweetly quavering sighs, to a sound like 

 the last woeful, despairing wail of a woman. It was 

 the song of the sea sirens and the music of the waves ; 

 it had the soft sough of the night wind in the trees, 

 and the haunting moan of lost spirits. 



With reluctance I turned my back to the gor 

 geously changing spectacle of the canon and crawled 

 in to the rim wall. At the narrow neck of stone I 

 peered over to look down into misty blue nothingness. 



That night Jones told stories of frightened 

 hunters, and assuaged my mortification by saying 

 &quot; buck-fever &quot; was pardonable after the danger had 

 passed, and especially so in my case, because of the 

 great size and fame of Old Tom. 



The worst case of buck-fever I ever saw was on 

 a buffalo hunt I had with a fellow named Williams,&quot; 

 went on Jones. &quot; I was one of the scouts leading 

 a wagon-train west on the old Santa Fe trail. This 



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