I pushed forward with all haste. Flagstaff was at the foot of the San Francisco Peaks and there would certainly be a deluge very shortly. The road was abominable. In most places it was so rocky and the gradient so steep that it was like riding up great flights of rugged steps. The sharp rocks dug in the tyres down to the rims, and the vibration shook the very sockets of one's bones.
On the left, barely a mile from the trail, we passed the "Meteor Mountain." This is a most remarkable sight. Situated in the midst of comparatively flat or rolling country, it looks at first sight like the crater of a great volcano. But its origin is not volcanic. It gives the impression of having been formed by artificial and not by natural means. The crater is half a mile across and the interior of the crater is saucer-shaped. An air of mystery envelops its origin, and many theories have been put forward to explain it. But the theories have either been disproved or have never been definitely accepted.
"Meteor Mountain" remains to this day a mystery of geology. In its crater is a ranch-house and hundreds of sheep graze in its vicinity.
A dozen miles farther on the trail led on to a magnificent steel bridge spanning the "Diablo Canyon"--a wonderful gorge in the limestone rocks. Far, far below ran a little stream of clear water.
The sky grew blacker still. We continued climbing over the sharp, rocky trail. The mighty peaks ahead were almost lost in a sea of blackness. Distant thunder rumbled and groaned across the desolate waste. Sharp flashes of lightning lit up the heavens for a moment and revealed the sharp, lurid outlines of the three giants around whose peaks centred the fury of the skies. Slowly the storm abated. I thanked Heaven for that.
Then we came to the fringe of a wonderful forest that covers the plateau and clothes the mountain sides almost to the summit of their peaks. The sight of the trees, the sound of the breezes as they rustled through the branches bearing with them the magic scent of the pines, was like passing from death to life. It was a new world, a world of new sensations and pleasant forms. The broiling wastes, the dazzling yellow sand, the strange and sometimes ugly shapes, the grotesque, the mysterious, the incredible: these were left behind--for a while.