Deep dark-blue shadows, like purple sails of immense ships, in wonderful
contrast with the bright sunlit slopes, grew and rose toward the east, down
the canyons and up the walls that faced the west. For a long while there
was no red color, and the first indication of it was a dull bronze. Carley
looked down into the void, at the sailing birds, at the precipitous slopes,
and the dwarf spruces and the weathered old yellow cliffs. When she looked
up again the shadows out there were no longer dark. They were clear. The
slopes and depths and ribs of rock could be seen through them. Then the
tips of the highest peaks and domes turned bright red. Far to the east she
discerned a strange shadow, slowly turning purple. One instant it grew
vivid, then began to fade. Soon after that all the colors darkened and
slowly the pale gray stole over all.
At night Carley gazed over and into the black void. But for the awful sense
of depth she would not have known the Canyon to be there. A soundless
movement of wind passed under her. The chasm seemed a grave of silence. It
was as mysterious as the stars and as aloof and as inevitable. It had held
her senses of beauty and proportion in abeyance.
At another sunrise the crown of the rim, a broad belt of bare rock, turned
pale gold under its fringed dark line of pines.
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