Down the mountain sides, like rivers of
silver pink, fell the sun's light. Then the valleys began to open
out of the chasm of night-dark canyons wrought in the wilderness of
the mountain sides. Here and there, oases left by the devastating
hand of time, rose high plateaus, tree-crowned and verdant. And
then, higher up among the white peaks, sentinel-like, stood giant
tables whose brown tops and precipitous sides told of inaccessible
and arid wastes. "And somewhere," said Ned to himself, "in this
Titanic chaos lies the object of our search."
Starting at half speed, Ned had soon reduced the engine to quarter
speed. When he aroused his sleeping companions Wilson's peak, their
chief landmark, was just in sight far behind. His calculations
placed the present location of the Cibola thirty miles from the
Chusco river and just over the eastern Tunit Chas Mountains.
"All hands turn to," shouted Ned cheerily, "and stand by to make a
landing."
There was a scramble, a rubbing of yet sleepy eyes and then an
outburst of admiring wonder. The Cibola had sailed over two broken
ridges enclosing an irregular, broken valley and was now looking
down on a shelf-like plateau abutting on the second ridge and west
of it.
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