One Sunday afternoon late in July old Henry Biltmer was rheumatically descending¹ into the head of the canyon². The Sunday before had been one of those cloudy days—fortunately rare—when the life goes out of that country and it becomes a gray ghost, an empty, shivering uncertainty³. Henry had spent the day in the barn; his canyon was a reality only when it was flooded with the light of its great lamp, when the yellow rocks cast purple shadows, and the resin⁴ was fairly cooking in the corkscrew cedars⁵. The yuccas were in blossom now. Out of each clump⁶ of sharp bayonet leaves rose a tall stalk hung with greenish-white bells with thick, fleshy petals⁷. The niggerhead cactus⁸ was thrusting its crimson⁹ blooms up out of every crevice¹⁰ in the rocks.  
Henry had come out on the pretext¹¹ of hunting a spade and pick-axe that young Ottenburg had borrowed, but he was keeping his eyes open. He was really very curious about the new occupants of the canyon, and what they found to do there all day long. He let his eye travel along the gulf¹² for a mile or so to the first turning, where the fissure¹³ zigzagged¹⁴ out and then receded¹⁵ behind a stone promontory¹⁶ on which stood the yellowish, crumbling¹⁷ ruin of the old watch-tower.
 
From the base of this tower, which now threw its shadow forward, bits of rock kept flying out into the open gulf—skating upon the air until they lost their momentum¹⁸, then falling like chips until they rang upon the ledges²⁰ at the bottom of the gorge²¹ or splashed into the stream. Biltmer shaded his eyes with his hand. There on the promontory, against the cream-colored cliff, were two figures nimbly moving in the light, both slender and agile²², entirely²³ absorbed in their game. They looked like two boys. Both were hatless and both wore white shirts.
 
Henry forgot his pick-axe and followed the trail before the cliff-houses toward the tower. Behind the tower, as he well knew, were heaps of stones, large and small, piled against the face of the cliff. He had always believed that the Indian watchmen piled them there for ammunition²⁴. Thea and Fred had come upon these missiles and were throwing them for distance. As Biltmer approached he could hear them laughing, and he caught Thea’s voice, high and excited, with a ring of vexation in it. Fred was teaching her to throw a heavy stone like a discus. When it was Fred’s turn, he sent a triangular-shaped stone out into the air with considerable skill. Thea watched it enviously²⁵, standing²⁶ in a half-defiant posture²⁷, her sleeves rolled above her elbows and her face flushed with heat and excitement. After Fred’s third missile had rung upon the rocks below, she snatched up a stone and stepped impatiently out on the ledge¹⁹ in front of him. He caught her by the elbows and pulled............