Beyond this
crossing the road descended the west side of the canyon, drawing away and
higher from the creek. Huge trees, the like of which Carley had never seen,
began to stand majestically up out of the gorge, dwarfing the maples and
white-spotted sycamores. The driver called these great trees yellow pines.
At last the road led down from the steep slope to the floor of the canyon.
What from far above had appeared only a green timber-choked cleft proved
from close relation to be a wide winding valley, tip and down, densely
forested for the most part, yet having open glades and bisected from wall
to wall by the creek. Every quarter of a mile or so the road crossed the
stream; and at these fords Carley again held on desperately and gazed out
dubiously, for the creek was deep, swift, and full of bowlders. Neither
driver nor horses appeared to mind obstacles. Carley was splashed and
jolted not inconsiderably. They passed through groves of oak trees, from
which the creek manifestly derived its name; and under gleaming walls,
cold, wet, gloomy, and silent; and between lines of solemn wide-spreading
pines. Carley saw deep, still green pools eddying under huge massed jumble
of cliffs, and stretches of white water, and then, high above the treetops,
a wild line of canyon rim, cold against the sky.
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