44 A BOOK-LOVER S HOLIDAYS 



heads are even softer than their hearts --that 

 the industrious race of advanced culture and 

 peaceful ideals is lost unless it retains the power 

 not merely for defensive but for offensive ac 

 tion, when itself menaced by vigorous and ag 

 gressive foes. 



That night, having ridden only some twenty- 

 five miles, we camped in Bubbling Spring Val 

 ley. It would be hard to imagine a wilder or 

 more beautiful spot; if in the Old World, the 

 valley would surely be celebrated in song and 

 story; here it is one among many others, all 

 equally unknown. We camped by the bubbling 

 spring of pure cold water from which it derives 

 its name. The long, winding valley was carpeted 

 with emerald green, varied by wide bands and rib 

 bons of lilac, where the tall ranks of bee-blos 

 soms, haunted by humming-birds, grew thickly, 

 often for a quarter of a mile at a stretch. The 

 valley was walled in by towering cliffs, a few of 

 them sloping, most of them sheer-sided or with 

 the tops overhanging; and there were isolated 

 rock domes and pinnacles. As everywhere round 

 about, the rocks were of many colors, and the 

 colors varied from hour to hour, so that the 

 hues of sunrise differed from those of noonday, 

 and yet again from the long lights of sunset. 

 The cliffs seemed orange and purple; and again 



