The high slope retreated out of sight
behind the nearer protection. To Venters the valley appeared to
have been filled in by a mountain of melted stone that had
hardened in strange shapes of rounded outline. He followed the
stream till he lost it in a deep cut. Therefore Venters quit the
dark slit which baffled further search in that direction, and
rode out along the curved edge of stone where it met the sage. It
was not long before he came to a low place, and here Wrangle
readily climbed up.
All about him was ridgy roll of wind-smoothed, rain-washed rock.
Not a tuft of grass or a bunch of sage colored the dull
rust-yellow. He saw where, to the right, this uneven flow of
stone ended in a blunt wall. Leftward, from the hollow that lay
at his feet, mounted a gradual slow-swelling slope to a great
height topped by leaning, cracked, and ruined crags. Not for some
time did he grasp the wonder of that acclivity. It was no less
than a mountain-side, glistening in the sun like polished
granite, with cedar-trees springing as if by magic out of the
denuded surface. Winds had swept it clear of weathered shale, and
rains had washed it free of dust. Far up the curved slope its
beautiful lines broke to meet the vertical rim-wall, to lose its
grace in a different order and color of rock, a stained yellow
cliff of cracks and caves and seamed crags. And straight before
Venters was a scene less striking but more significant to his
keen survey.
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