And if you want a wilder, more eery trail than down Bright Angel, go from Dripping Springs out to Gertrude Point. I know a great many wild mountain trails in the Rockies, North and South; but I have never known one that will give more thrills from its sheer beauty and sheer daring. You go out round the ledges of precipice after precipice, where nothing holds you back from a fall 7,000 feet straight as a stone could drop, nothing but the sure-footedness of your horse; out and out, round and round peak after peak, till you are on the tip top and outer edge of one of the highest mountains in the Canyon. This is the trail of old Louis Boucher, one of the beauty-loving souls who first found his way into the center of the Canyon and built his own trail to one of its grandest haunts. Louis used to live under the arch formed by the Dripping Springs; but Louis has long since left, and the trail is falling away and is now one for a horse that can walk on air and a head that doesn't feel the sensations of champagne when looking down a straight 7,000 feet into darkness. If you like that kind of a trail, take the trip; for it is the best and wildest view of the Canyon; but take two days to it, and sleep at Louis' deserted camp under the Dripping Springs. Yet if you don't like a trail where you wonder if you remembered to make your will and what would happen if the gravel slipped from your horse's feet one of these places where the next turn seems to jump off into atmosphere, then wait; for the day must surely come when all of the Grand Canyon's 217 miles will be made as easily and safely accessible to the American public as Egypt. CHAPTER IX THE GOVERNOR'S PALACE OF SANTA FE