The purple stratum
continued its way to a depression wide enough to give Enoch sitting
room. Here he rested for a short moment. The back of the depression
offered an easy assent for two or three hundred feet, to the top of
another terrace along whose broad top Enoch walked comfortably for a
quarter of a mile to the point where the butte projected from the main
canyon wall. The slope here was not too steep to climb and Enoch made
fair speed to the top.
The view here was superb but Enoch gave small heed to this. To his
deep disappointment, there was no sign of life, either animal or
vegetable, as far as his eye could reach. He stood, gun in hand, the
wind tossing his ruddy hair, his great shoulders drooping with
weariness, his keen eyes sweeping the landscape until he became
conscious that the sun was low in the west. With a start, he realized
that dusk must already be peering into the bottom of the Canyon.
Then he bethought himself of the eagle's nest. It was a terrible
climb, before he lay on a ledge peering ever into the guano-stained
structure of sticks from which the eagle soared again at his approach.
As he looked, he laughed. The forequarters of a mountain goat lay in
the nest. Hanging perilously by one hand, Enoch grasped the long,
bloody hair and then, rolling back on to the ledge, he stuffed his loot
into his game bag and started campward.
Pages:
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326