After a much-needed rest at Emmett's, we bade good-by to him and
his hospitable family, and under the guidance of his man once
more took to the wind-swept trail. We pursued a southwesterly
course now, following the lead of the craggy red wall that
stretched on and on for hundreds of miles into Utah. The desert,
smoky and hot, fell away to the left, and in the foreground a
dark, irregular line marked the Grand Canyon cutting through the
plateau.

The wind whipped in from the vast, open expanse, and meeting an
obstacle in the red wall, turned north and raced past us. Jones's
hat blew off, stood on its rim, and rolled. It kept on rolling,
thirty miles an hour, more or less; so fast, at least, that we
were a long time catching up to it with a team of horses.
Possibly we never would have caught it had not a stone checked
its flight. Further manifestation of the power of the desert wind
surrounded us on all sides. It had hollowed out huge stones from
the cliffs, and tumbled them to the plain below; and then,
sweeping sand and gravel low across the desert floor, had cut
them deeply, until they rested on slender pedestals, thus
sculptoring grotesque and striking monuments to the marvelous
persistence of this element of nature.

Late that afternoon, as we reached the height of the plateau,
Jones woke up and shouted: "Ha! there's Buckskin!"

Far southward lay a long, black mountain, covered with patches of
shining snow. I could follow the zigzag line of the Grand Canyon
splitting the desert plateau, and saw it disappear in the haze