The elation that Roger felt over the successful issue of the heliograph message with which he had been intrusted soon dwindled away under the realization that he did not know what was coming next. The only instructions he had received were that he was to take Duke to Prescott, Ariz., there to leave him with certain friends of Masseth's who would take care of him. Masseth had also told him to call for his mail, and of course the presumption was that he would there receive notice as to the next step in his Survey work. But for the moment he was masterless, and the boy felt a little lost. So when Roger had packed the little heliograph instrument in as small compass as possible, in order that it might not be ungainly in the saddle, and gone to the edge of the Canyon to look over, the scene struck him with loneliness. In precisely the same place, two months before, he had stood and made up his mind to risk the peril of that single-handed journey, and his courage began to revive as he remembered how well it had resulted. Down below him he could see Bright Angel Creek, and far away, the peak to which he had signaled, all redolent of the interest of the summer now fast waning. Even the trail upon which he set out to return was full of the memories of his frontiersman friend, who had lightened the way with anecdote and information on his first journey there. But while Roger was inly conscious of a feeling of isolation in being thus cut off from all the Survey parties, and looked forward to his ride to Needles with little anticipation, that sense was not shared by Duke, who, having twice before with Roger traversed the high Kaibab plateau, remembered well the succulent long bunch-grass, the fragrant lupine and the toothsome wild oats. For the Kaibab plateau, lying high and therefore being moister than the surrounding territory, is a veritable garden. The gently declining ravines, instead of being filled with boulders at the bottom, are decked with flowers and their bases are avenues of smooth, rich lawn; on the banks rise spruces and pines, with the white trunks and pale foliage of the quivering aspen; and on the table-land above in wild profusion grow every sort of herb and plant and flower. The desert lies to the north, the inaccessible Canyon to the south, an alkali waste to the westward, and the desolate cactus land to the east, but the Kaibab plateau, 8,000 feet above the sea, is a sylvan paradise. Yet there is no running water, and travel over it must be well within reach of trails. Here alone, in this vast arid tract, it rains frequently, but the rains form no streams, for the whole plateau is pitted with cups or depressions ten to twenty feet across, into which the water runs, and through which by some underground passages it disappears only to swell in some invisible manner the swollen torrent of the Colorado, 6,000 feet below.