After a time we stopped to inquire the way of an old man dipping water from a pond by the roadside. He told us he was dipping water to wash the wheat he was sowing in the field just over the fence, and that we reach the forks, then to keep the Van Buren road, pass two houses on the left, a white one on the right, another on the left and then inquire the way--anyone could tell us, and Captain Greer would show us to the Spring, "for he is a mighty accommodating man." On we went to the forks where in the point of the Y stood a large tree with a Van Buren sign-board on one side, and in the direction it pointed, we turned, although rather reluctantly, for it looked little used and rocky, while the other was in good condition; but we followed the sign-board and had no misgivings until it began to be realized that a great deal of time was being passed but no houses. The morning had been very chilly, but now the atmosphere was just at that balmy point between warm and cool that makes mere living an unqualified luxury; and added to this we soon found ourselves in a deep canon no less beautiful than the justly celebrated North Cheyenne Canon near Colorado Springs. There was now no doubt that we were on the wrong road, but such magnificence was unexpected and not to be turned from with indifference. For some distance the road makes a gradual and rather perilous looking descent along the steep and broken slope on the shady side of the ancient river's great retaining-wall, while that opposite is glorified by the brilliant glow of the afternoon sun, which adds an equal charm to the rich, luxuriant foliage below and the tall stately pines that adorn, without concealing, the grey rock they proudly cling to, or that rises in a protecting rampart three hundred feet higher than the canon bed, with banners of the long-needled pine waving above to proclaim the perfection of Nature's undisturbed freedom. The road descending crosses the thread of water still flowing among the great rounded bowlders left by the former torrent, and our view is changed to one of dense, but by no means melancholy, shadows, with a crown of golden sunlight; and presently the course of the canon turns to the east, and it is all filled with the yellow rays and we notice the bright red hawthorn berries, and masses of hydrangea still showing remnants of their late profusion of bloom. We Missourians have a great love of fine scenery and generally take long journeys into other states in order to gratify the taste, while quite unconscious of the wonderful beauty and grandeur of the Ozarks. Where the canon begins to broaden into a small sheltered valley as it approaches Eleven Points River, we turned and retraced our way to the forks, and a short distance beyond to a house where we might again inquire. A woman came to the open door as we stopped and in answer to a question said: "You ought to have asked me when you passed here a while ago."