A thin and sparse covering of grass, but enough to the casual observer to relieve the whole land from the charge of barrenness; the black and white grama grasses, with their delicate shades of green; and a host of wild flowers of most exquisite colors in glorious combinations. Here masses of flaming marigolds and sunflowers; yonder patches of the white and purple tinted flowers of the jimson-weed, while its rich green leaves form a complete covering for the tawny sand or rocky desolation beneath. Here are larkspurs, baby blue-eyes, Indian's paint brush, daisies, lilies, and a thousand and one others, the purples, blues, reds, pinks, whites, and browns giving one a chromatic feast, none the less delightful because it is totally unexpected. Then who can tell of the glory of the hundreds of cacti in bloom, great prickly monsters, barrel shaped, cylindrical, lobe formed, and yet all picked out in the rarest, most dainty flowers the eye of man ever gazed upon? Look yonder at the "hosh-kon," one of the yucca family, a sacred plant to the Navahoes. Its dagger-like green leaves are crowned and glorified with the central stalk, around which cluster a thousand waxen white bells, and this one is only a beginning to the marvellous display of them we shall see as we ride along. The greasewood veils its normal ugliness in revivified leaves and a delicate flossy yellow bloom that makes it charming to the eye. Even the sagebrush attains to some charm of greenness, and where the juniper and cedar and pine lurk in the shades of some of the rocky slopes, the deepest green adds its never-ending comfort and delight to the scene. Yet you look in vain for the rivers, the creeks, the babbling brooks, the bubbling fountains, the ponds, that charm your eye in Eastern landscapes. Oh, for the Adirondacks,--the lakes and streams which abound on every hand. If only these could be transplanted into this desert to give their peculiar delights without any of their drawbacks, _then_ the Painted Desert Region would be the ideal land. It would never do to bring the Adirondack flies and gnats and mosquitoes; its hot, sultry nights and muggy, sweltering days. No! These we can do without. We would have its advantages, but with none of its disadvantages. How futile such wishes; how childish such longings! Each place is itself; and, for myself, I love the Painted Desert even in its waterlessness, its barrenness, and its desolation. Think of its stimulating altitude, its colors, its clear, cloudless sky, its glorious, divine stars, its delicious evening coolness, its never-disturbed solitudes, its speaking silences, its romances, its mysteries, its tragedies, its histories. These are some of the things that make the Painted Desert what it is--a region of unqualified fascination and allurement. CHAPTER III FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE HOPI