We were all unprepared for the Canyon de Chelley when we came upon it, a few hours later. The entrance is the sort all such places should have, casual, yet dramatic,--hiding one moment what it reveals with telling effect the next. The rolling plain apparently spread for miles without variation; nothing unusual, sand and bleak dunes, sage and piñon, and behind, against buff hills, the rather ugly government buildings, schools, hospitals, and like substitutes for freedom that we give the Indian. We rode a few steps down a natural rocky incline, and a wall opened, as it did for Aladdin, and through the aperture of these gate-like cliffs we saw the beginning of a narrow valley, grassy and fertile, bordering a river imprisoned for life between continuous walls, smooth, dark red, varying in height from three hundred to three thousand feet, and as unbroken as if some giant had sliced them with his sword. We rode through this embodiment of Dead Man’s Gulch, and came a few feet beyond on the canyon of whose beauty we had heard from afar. Canyon de Chelley is a dry river bed, with banks a thousand feet or more in the air. In winter and early spring the water brims up to the solid walls hemming it in on all sides, leaving no foothold for horse or man. As it recedes, towards summer, it leaves broad strips of beaches and fertile little green nooks under the shadow of the cliffs, with the river meandering in the middle. Yet lovely as it is, it has a Lorelei charm. Its yellow sands, when not thoroughly dry, are treacherous,--quicksand of the worst sort. With our outfit we had a large wagon, which our driver turned too quickly over a new cut-bank. In an instant, the wagon toppled on two wheels, and we had a vision of Toby and Martha flying through the air, followed by bedding, cameras and supplies. Fortunately they barely escaped the overturning wagon, which followed them, and landed unhurt. Before we could reach them the contents of the wagon were entirely covered by the sucking sand. Had it been spring, when the pull of the quicksand is more vigorous, we should not have been able to recover them. [Illustration: NEAR THE ENTRANCE OF CANYON DE CHELLEY, ARIZONA. Canyon de Chelley is a river bed with banks a thousand feet or more in air.] Those of us who were on horseback followed the edge of the stream, sometimes acting as guide for the wagon, sometimes following in its slow wake. We galloped ahead, on the hard sands, level and smooth for miles, or splashed to our horses’ knees in the deeper parts of the stream, or edged them more cautiously through quicksands, of which there still remained more than a trace. They sank to the ankles, and each hoof left a little swirling, sucking well, which quickly filled with water. But only one spot seemed at all dangerous.