HILLS AND MOUNTAINS OF ARIZONA

THE hills and mountains of Arizona are apparitions on the horizon-jagged and saw-toothed. The sun and clouds play a symphony of color on them, and at night, starlit and eerie, they loom in the moonlight, strange and far-away, dim in distance and mystery. Sunrise over the hills and mountains of Arizona is a sight to behold. In the east the rising sun builds a halo of soft gold, as if gentle, unseen fingers were enveloping the crests with burnished cloth. The color becomes more intense as the Fire God rises in the heavens and soon the east is aflame and the hills and mountains are aglow with fire-leaping fire of red and living gold.

Then the fires fade into cold purple blue embers as morning shadows cling to the outline and soon the hills and mountains are cold and clear in the bright sun and above is the clear blue sky with an errant white cloud loitering by, going no place in a hurry, a sleepy head with dreams of yestereven still lingering.

When the storms come the sky is black and heavy over the hills and mountains and the lightning flashes break through the blackness livid and repellent. After the storm passes the mountains glisten in the clear sunlight, so bright and clear they seem that the unwary traveler will think they are only a few miles away and then they will taunt you in high mirth as they seem to be further away the longer you travel toward them.

Distance is a gay old mischief maker in Arizona. There is something about the air that fools you if you are not accustomed to the country.

In the evening the mountains of Arizona wear robes of rose and garnet, ruby and crimson, as the worn old sun sinks slowly in the west like a tired old man, happy and proud of his pious centuries, going to bed. The million shades of red over the mountains deepen into fantastic purples before night pulls her magic curtain and the world sleeps.

No stranger to the mountains of central Arizona is Carl Larsen, government hunter, who contributes the mountainscape on the opposite page. There is something about himthe way he walks, talks and listens a clear refreshing quality that bespeaks high rugged mountains where the lions dwell, where come the winds and the storms and from where on clear days you see new horizons far, far away.

The two mountain studies on the succeeding pages are by Max Kegley, who also knows the mountains and the hills of Arizona. One of his studies deals with the forest country where the snows come deep in the winter and the other with the low hills where desert dwellers try hard to climb out of the broad valleys.

Dan R. Williamson's "Workman Creek Falls," is in the Sierras Anchas, a beautiful range in northern Gila county where the forest is heavy and thick, dotted with small ranches R. C. •