So we rolled into our blankets for a dreamless sleep on the edge of the Land of Enchantment that lay stretched out below us under the brilliant stars.

We were astir early the next morning and before the sun was up we were all ready to start out on the second division of our journey. Our ponies were saddled and the pack horses ready. The only thing that saddened us, was the fact that we had to part with our friend and comrade, the captain.

But in the light of a new day and refreshed by a good night's rest it did not seem such a gloomy prospect as on the evening before. We had found that in the hazardous life we had lived so long that when we turned in at night that it was the best way to forget, banish from our minds all worry about the next day. No matter what desperate matters faced us on the morrow.

We discovered that things never seemed so bad on the next day when we were on our feet to meet them as when we lay on our backs thinking them over.

We were now ready to say good-bye and no ado was made about it either by the captain or ourselves. What was the use? We all instinctively disliked any display of emotion.

"How long will it take you, captain?" asked Jim, "to get back to the plateau?"

"I shall make quick time and use the cutoffs," answered the captain. "It won't be much over a week before I am sitting in the armchair, with my feet on the table reading a book, or looking down the canyon from my open door."

"And we will be gliding down the placid Colorado about that time,"

laughed Jim, "with Tom and Jo serenading the Indian maidens on the banks as we go drifting by."

"It's a beautiful picture," the captain smiled gravely, "but in reality I see you bailing out your boat and dodging rocks and Indian missiles."

"That's about it," I a.s.sented. "By the way, you won't forget to mail our letters home, at the settlement, captain."

"Not I," replied the captain. "It will be good news for them to hear that you have arrived so far in safety."

"We never make much of our little adventures," remarked Jim, "when we write home. We want to keep them feeling cheerful."

"That's right," returned the captain. "Now it is time for you to start, the sun will soon be up. Good-bye and the best of luck to you."

He shook hands with each of us and there was the strength of friendship in his grip.

"Good bye," we called.

And the captain swung his horse around and headed up the canyon.

"Don't be surprised if we drop in on you in a year or two," cried Jim, after him.

"The sooner the better," shouted the captain, and with a salute, which we returned, he disappeared in the depths of the canyon headed north.

We rode south down the slope and reaching the plain turned our horses'

heads directly west.

"It seems fine to be on level stretch," remarked Tom, "after going up and down hills, over mountains and through canyons."

It did give us a curious sense of freedom and exhilaration, very much as when you are out of sight of land on the ocean and see the blue surges rolling freely to the horizon.

"Let's have a race," I proposed. "Here is a good stretch."

"Hold on," cried Jim, "we aren't kids any longer. We have got to settle down and cut out our foolishness. There is no use in tiring our ponies out at the start, they will need all the go that is in them before we reach the river."

Jim was right as I recognized in an instant, though my first impulse was one of anger at being called down, but I thought better of it.

"All right, old hoss," I replied, "the jog trot for me. How far do you expect to go to-day?"

"Well, you see the ponies are fine and fit. I calculate to make between sixty and seventy miles."

"Whew!" I whistled, "you'll wear them out."

"Don't you believe it," replied Jim, "that's nothing awful. Why, don't you know that those buck Indians will cover seventy-five miles in a day and over mountains too? We'd do forty ourselves and not feel it."

"I reckon you are right," came from Tom, "this is certainly fine traveling. We ought to make time."

It was good going. The plain was covered with short, crisp gra.s.s. The sun was just coming up and the blue depths of dawn were broken by the shining arrows of the sun. The shadows were stript slowly from the great mesas and the weird b.u.t.tes and strange desert sculptures stood out in absolute distinctness.

I tell you what, it was fine to be young and fit and free in such a country as lay around us. Hardships and sufferings were ahead of us, we knew that, and many dangers; we had experienced them in the past.

I wish you could have a picture of us as we jogged along, sitting securely, easily on our ponies, our rifles hung on our back, slouch hats flapping about our ears and hiding the sunburned radiance of our countenances as grey clouds do the sun.

Moccasins on our feet; our worn but serviceable clothes that did not altogether conceal our muscular figures. We were hard and fit and we ought to have been. Our hands were black as any Indians and what they gripped they could hold onto. In the rear of the procession trotted the two pack animals.

We may have seemed too young to undertake the responsibilities we had.

But Jim was almost seventeen, the age that the famous scout, Kit Carson, started on his career in the West. Tom and I, the twins, were two years younger. Jim was the kingpin and we were auxiliaries.

CHAPTER XII

THE MESA VILLAGE

"I tell you one thing," said Jim, "I'm mighty glad to get out of the country of the Apaches. Our one experience with those beggars will last me the rest of my natural life."

"We might run into some roving bands," I said. "I don't believe that they have any regular boundaries to their country."

"They don't get beyond their own section, unless they are at war with some other tribes. They ought to be satisfied with all those mountains and plains back of us to hunt over."

"Say boys, what is that ahead of us on that mesa?" asked Tom. "It looks like some houses to me."

"Houses!" I exclaimed, skeptically, "what would anybody do with houses up on a place like that and who would live in them?"

"It's reasonable enough," said Jim, "that the Indians should build on a high place like that. It's a natural fort and they would be safe from the attacks of their enemies. In a flat country like this where there are no woods or other defense those mesas are just the thing."

"I suppose that we had better keep to the north," I said, "because we don't want to mix it with any Indians. I don't care for their society, no matter how kind and gentle they are and perhaps it isn't their day at home."

"We can't always be dodging around," replied Jim, "for we will never reach the Colorado River. It's right on our line of march and we might just as well take in all the sights."

"Perhaps it is just a mirage," I suggested hopefully, "like that beautiful lake we saw on the plains in Kansas, with the trees around it.

That was nothing but a heated haze and our thirsty imaginations."

"That's no mirage, it's the real thing," declared Tom. "You'll see in a half hour."