_he_ knew her seeming arrogancy was mere pretense. She was never
patterned for a queen, nor for a charmer that spurned her idolators with
haughty insolence.
The music ceased, but the joyous dancers encored to such a degree that
the orchestra responded. During the interval in the dance Sandy smiled
at Julie, and said: “It will not be necessary for Miss Joan to make that
wish as my proxy at the Enchanted Mesa. The iceberg is no more.”
Julie tried to pout, but her spirits were too effervescent, and it ended
in a laugh, as the Ranger swung her away again in the second half of the
dance.
“Think I’ll stop for breath!” gasped Julie, as they came opposite an
inviting balcony reached by palm-bowered French windows.
Sandy caught her thought and instantly whirled her over to the alluring
tête-à-tête. As fate had it that evening the balcony was unoccupied, so
the Ranger seated Julie in a luxurious wicker chair and took the other
vacant chair beside her.
“Oh, what a marvelous scene!” exclaimed the scout, gazing at the
sea-blue heavens where the brilliant stars twinkled like signal-lights
on unseen vessels riding at anchor in the clear transparency of the
heaven. All about she could see the ghostlike peaks that seemed to
encircle the city, and back of them other peaks, and then back of these
still others, till night swallowed the dim outlines of the Santa Fé
Range, the Pecos, the Sangre de Cristo, and other mountains.
Sandy was silent. He sat and stared at the distant mountains and
pondered. He wished to ask a favor of his companion, but he was not sure
how it would be received.
“Are you trying to see what your friend Oliver is doing up on Grass
Peak?” asked Julie, quizzically, as she waited overlong for the Ranger
to speak.
“I was visualizing myself up there in the cabin after Oliver brings up
the mail-pouch. I will enjoy reading letters, next to being with Mr.
Gilroy’s party.”
“Oh! then I shall see that both the men write you picture post-cards as
we travel westward,” suggested Julie.
“I don’t care about _that_, but I do care about having you write: will
you?”
“Post-cards? Why, I will, if no one else has time,” teased Julie.
“You know very well what I mean. Our time is so short, can’t you be
serious just for a moment? I want you to promise to write _letters_ to
me—tell me what you are doing, where you are going, whom you are seeing!
I want to feel that I am with you when you go through that wonderful
Canyon in Arizona, when you go down Bright Angel, and when you camp in
the bed of the Colorado River. Will you invite me to be with you by
sharing your experiences in a letter?”
Julie had had many boyish admirers in Elmertown. After the Adirondack
Camp the Boy Scouts of Grey Fox wrote frequently, and she answered their
letters. She was too pretty and vivacious a girl to remain in the
background of any society, hence she enjoyed light-hearted flirtations,
and only last winter a few of her sister May’s callers took notice of
her and included her in any party or outing. But this was a very
different kind of a man from the boys she knew. While she was highly
flattered, she was not quite certain whether she ought to encourage his
apparent tendency to become attached to her. Several moments passed in
utter silence while she thought. Sandy understood and waited.
Julie sighed in uncertainty and glanced at the young man who sat and
awaited her answer. She saw how eager he seemed, and she thought of the
life he lived with a much older man all alone on that mountain-top.
Then she had a bright idea.
“I’ll send you the copies of the _Elmertown Record_! There you can read
in print exactly what we are doing, eh?”
“No! I’ll have no cold print. I want personal letters in your
hand-writing, or nothing!” He was certainly getting to speak with
authority, was Julie’s thought. Then she giggled as she heard, in mind,
Joan’s comment.
“Regular cave-man manner, Jule!”
“You’re going to say yes—I know you are,” exulted Sandy.
“Then you know more about it than I do. But I promise to think it over.
You might give me your post office address, because, should I decide to
send you a word, now and then, I’ll have it on hand.”
The Ranger caught Julie’s hand in his pleasure, and his eyes beamed
thrillingly. The situation was becoming very romantic, thought Julie,
when, quite unexpectedly, Mrs. Vernon stepped out upon the balcony.
“Oh, here you are!” said she, glancing quickly from one to the other.
“Mr. Gilroy is waiting to dance with you, Julie, and the girls are
deeply offended because Sandy has not asked one of them to dance. Shall
we go in and join the others?”
They had to follow, but Julie sent one longing glance over her shoulder
at the far-off glimmer that might be Panchuelo; while the Ranger leaned
over and whispered: “Here’s my post office address—Julie, dear!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE ENCHANTED MESA
The next day Sandy and the two New Yorkers said lingering farewells and
rode away. Burt would go with the scouts as far as Gallup. He wished to
visit the Zuñi Reservation in the extreme western section of Valencia
County, therefore it would be much pleasanter to travel there with such
an ideal party as this of Mr. Gilroy’s.
Immediately following the Ranger’s departure the scout-party rode away
from Albuquerque and struck the trail leading to Laguna. But the wind
blew such a gale of dust that day that riding was anything rather than
pleasure. It would have been a simple matter for the tourists to take
the train to Laguna, but that was too usual. Perhaps they silently
regretted this decision long before they saw the old pueblo town of
Laguna. The railroad passes through the lower street—“strata”—but the
scouts rode up to the city after having viewed it from afar. Thus its
piled-up tiers of streets, like a conical layer cake, seemed more
interesting to them than it does to one who merely goes “through” on a
train.
After having spent several days at the luxurious hotel in Albuquerque,
and then, as a contrast, camping at night and for three meals each day
on the dusty trail to Laguna, the scouts were relieved to find a
splendid camp-site back of the town, where they would have privacy and
comfort. The Denver gentleman who had welcomed them as they rode into
Laguna that afternoon nodded in the direction of a tiny stream running
through a crevice of the rock, and at a short distance from the site a
good pasturage for the animals.
“You say you will ride to Acoma to-morrow, Mr. Gilroy?” said Mr.
Balmore, wonderingly.
“Yes; it is really not more than twenty miles there, is it?”
“Not that far, to be exact,” returned Mr. Balmore, “but your horses have
had a tough trail and arduous going from Albuquerque, and I should
advise your hiring a couple of teams and driving there. That will give
your animals a whole day in which to rest and freshen up again.”
“We had planned to take the train from here to Gallup—not to ride the
trail,” explained Mr. Gilroy.
“From observation merely I should say that the horses would need
_several_ days’ rest to be able to give you good service in the Navajo
Land. Your man could remain with them for the day, and the drivers on
the wagons can act as guides and camp-cooks.”
“Gilly, Mr. Balmore is right. We will go up in wagons. Besides, I think
it will be more fun for the girls. We need a change from being so much
in the saddle,” said Mrs. Vernon.
“The Captain’s wishes are law with us, Mr. Balmore,” chuckled Mr.
Gilroy. “I’ll go down with you and arrange for the two wagons. Want to
come, Vernon?”
Mr. Vernon had nothing to do and he readily agreed to accompany the two
men into Laguna. The teams and their drivers were engaged, and then Mr.
Balmore went with his companions to see that they were provided with
such food-stuffs as would taste delicious up on the great pueblo of
Acoma.
Early the next morning the scouts hurried to the rendezvous where the
teams were to be. Tally watched them go, dissatisfaction with the
arrangement that left him behind plainly expressed on his face.
“How wonderful that sunrise is in this atmosphere!” exclaimed Mrs.
Vernon, as they all stood for a moment after reaching the verge of the
bluff where the camp was pitched, and breathed in the wonderful air and
gloried in the view.
“The sky is really and truly a turquoise blue, Verny, isn’t it?” asked
Betty.
“Yes, I have never seen anything like it excepting the coloring of sky
and water at Naples, and the coast towns of eastern Italy.”
“Verny, we simply _must_ get some more of the marvelous wild flowers
that are to be found here, to add to our collection,” declared Judith
Blake, who was half-wild over everything she saw in the west.
“If we collect any more specimens of the cactus, our folks back home
will begin to think we plan to launch some sort of Indian patent
medicine,” laughed Julie.
“We wouldn’t be believed by the school children in Elmertown if we told
them that the western deserts of New Mexico and Arizona are not the
broiling waste of sand they picture to themselves,” said Amy Ward.
“I wrote Edith all about it,” added the elder sister, Judith, “and told
her how very different it is from what mother feared. If only Edie could
have come!”
Further regrets were forgotten now, however, as the scouts came to the
meeting-place where they found the teams awaiting them. Then there was
merry laughter and much advice as the girls got in and settled
themselves in the wagons. Finally the drivers cracked their whips, and
started their four-in-hands on the trip.
As such a party was an occasion in Laguna many of the natives were up to
watch the four-in-hands and the joyous scouts start. Women with their
babies in bright-hued shawls slung across their backs, and men with
bronzed bodies wearing only the hip-cloth, and children with no clothes
whatever, stood solemnly watching till the entire party was out of
sight. But Julie had managed to perpetuate the scene by snapshotting the
picturesque group on a film in her camera.
The sun now rose higher, touching the wild poppies, the gorgeous globe
cactus, even the blue forget-me-nots with such ardent love that it was
small wonder these desert blooms glowed with color as no other
wild-flowers can produce.
“Oh, look. See that picture made by the sheep going down to drink,”
called Julie, who was in the first wagon. “Just like pictures in the
Bible.”
The tourists had left Laguna, where the sun was touching the twin-towers
of the church on the crest of the hill as they had their last glimpse of
it, and had been going steadily up the trail for some time before Julie
spoke.
The comparison was true. Far off near an adobe dwelling one could see an
oriental female form with a water-jar upon her head; glimpse the bit of
brilliant color produced by the red shawl; see the sandy stretches of
sandy mesa, dotted with flaring blossoms; the water-hole to which the
flock was now trending; the lavender-tinted hills encircling this great
plain; the purpled mountains rising in protection of its foot-hills; and
then, away off on the distant sky-line, the snow-capped peaks gleaming
in rainbow tints as the light reflected and shimmered on their dazzling,
snowy heads.
“Oh, I feel like crying!” half-sobbed Amy Ward, the effects of the scene
exalting her soul.
The other girls were silent for a time. The drivers, to whom this
country was an everyday matter, never looked up but drove on as if they
were sticks of wood.
At a sudden turn in the trail the tourists saw just ahead that they
would have to go up a forbidding mountain. Mr. Gilroy turned to Mr.
Vernon, who was with him in the second wagon, and frowned.
“No wonder Balmore advised us to rest our horses and keep them fresh for
the Desert and Petrified Forests,” exclaimed he, glancing up at the
towering heights before them.
Then suddenly, the great sides of the mountain seemed to open and they
were entering a vast cut. Directly through this cleft one could see a
marvelous valley; a valley which was encircled by protecting hills and
distant peaks, just as the mesa and the pictured scene Julie had pointed
out before the great mountain had so unexpectedly shut off their view.
Now, presto! the mountain was gone!
Mr. Vernon stared at Mr. Gilroy in blank amazement, and Mr. Gilroy
seemed dazed. The girls rubbed their eyes. From the first wagon, where
Mr. Burt and the Captain supervised the scouts, a chorus rose. A chorus
of “oh” and “ah,” then the familiar sound of Julie’s excited treble.
“Gilly! Gilly! the guide says that that was a mirage. Didn’t you think
we were climbing a great mountain?”
“Well, sir! that’s what it was,” sighed Mr. Gilroy, as the tension
snapped and they all grinned foolishly.
“By the Great-horned Spoon!” ejaculated Mr. Vernon, his jaw dropping as
he realized that the mountain with its ghostlike cleft that ushered them
through its blank walls was _nothing_.
“Vernon, sometimes I wonder if all our earthly problems and sorrows are
really anything more than mirages,” said Mr. Gilroy, as the wagon bumped
over a rut and brought him to a sense of where they were at the moment.
Mr. Vernon laughed. “At least that rut was not a mirage, eh, Joan?”
The sun rose higher, its rays seeming to start mirages in the
lilac-tinted haze which enveloped the plains and peaks. Quite often,
now, one or another in the party would call out to draw attention to a
beautiful lake engirdled by pine groves; to a valley where the flocks or
herds pastured; to a barren mountain where the erosions gave view to
dark masses of rock and waste. Then, in a flash, all this would vanish,
and again the two wagons would be squeaking and rattling up the trail to
Acoma.
“No wonder it is called the Enchanted Mesa!” cried Julie. “The whole
land here is bewitched.”
“Julie, why don’t you get a picture of one of these mirages?” asked Amy
Ward, to whom the west was an unexplored land of possibilities—even its
mirages might turn out to be genuine places!
“How can you photograph air and light?” laughed Julie, from her vast
experiences of the past season in the Rockies.
“It’s a shame that one can’t get it on a plate,” added Judith.
“It is served on a plate,” remarked Mr. Burt, jokingly. “On the
sensitive plate of the vision, and that prints it permanently on our
memories.”
The scouts saw the ancient pueblo of Acoma perched up on its towering
wall of over four hundred feet in height, long before they actually had
arrived. As they came nearer, the tourists saw tiny windows, like the
row of portholes on a vessel, lining the top of the rock. Still nearer,
the girls could see, here and there, heads sticking out of these
windows. The teams were a curiosity to the natives.
The drivers halted their horses and the scouts jumped down, glad to
stretch their limbs.
“First we’ll have a light luncheon of sandwiches and the milk which I
brought in our large thermos bottles,” said Mrs. Vernon, as she had the
men unpack the hamper.
Having enjoyed the “bite” they started up the sandy climb to the
pueblo. This climb to the natives is nothing more than a city block on a
good pavement means to Tenderfeet. But the climb up, and _up_, and UP,
to the scouts, was like going up the side of the Woolworth Building.
Finally, however, they reached the top of the stone steps, and the sandy
reaches, and the high places, where shaky ladders have to be used. Once
up, the tourists gazed around in interest at the dwellings, tier upon
tier, and each tier reached by means of movable ladders.
“No chance for burglaries in those upper flats, if the tenant pulls the
ladder up after him,” laughed Mr. Burt.
The entire village was built upon a solid rock. There were pools of
clear spring water, enough to supply all the inhabitants and their
domestic animals. There were plenty of dogs, and cats, and chickens
wandering about on the shelf-like dooryards of the flats, and of these
Julie got a fine picture of a hen and her brood clucking about up on the
fourth tier of a dwelling.
“What she can find to eat after scratching in that bare adobe is a
caution to me!” cried Joan, watching the energetic ambition of the
mother-hen.
After visiting the church in Acoma, which took forty years to build,
Julie said: “No wonder! with walls ten feet thick.”
Having seen everything and taken photographs of the Enchanted Mesa from
every point of view, as well as of the pueblo of Acoma, the scouts voted
to return to Laguna. It would be dark long before they could expect to
reach camp, but the road was excellent throughout the trip and there was
no danger in following it even at night. Perhaps that return trip under
the dazzling brightness of the stars, and the shooting of meteors across
the heavens, was as enjoyable to the scouts as the eager watching for
mirages on the way up in the morning.
However, there were no protests when they had reached camp and the
Captain said: “Now, all off to bed at once!”
The following morning, shortly after sun-up, the scouts held a council
meeting—nothing formal that would exclude Mr. Burt, but a conference on
ways and means, especially ways.
“I approve of your taking the train from here to Gallup and then trail
into the Zuñi Reservation, and, perhaps, go into the Gila River country
with me,” said Mr. Burt.
“No, and we’ll explain why,” said Mrs. Vernon. “We must now limit our
visit in Arizona to one month. In that time we must trail over the
Painted Desert in Navajo Land, visit the Petrified Forests, do the Grand
Cañon, and come out at the Hualapai Indian Reservation. We expect to
take the train to Prescott Junction and there change to the Prescott and
Central Arizona railroad in order to connect with the Southern Pacific
trains later on. But we hope to secure stop-over privileges on the
tickets to enable us to visit the Salt River Indian as well as the Gila
Indian Reservations, then we plan to follow the Apache Trail and visit
Roosevelt Dam, thence go down to Tucson and so home.”
“But why such a criss-cross trip to get back to the East? Why not go on
the short route, the same as when you came out?” wondered the newspaper
man.
“Because we wish to take the Sunset Route as far as Houston, Texas, and
there go to Galveston, where we hope to get a steamer to New York. It
would be an ideal ending of an ideal summer trail.”
“Would it! Well, I should say,” declared Mr. Burt, emphatically. “Only
wish I was a Girl Scout of Dandelion Troop.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AT ST. MICHAEL’S MISSION
The scout-party preferred a local train from Laguna to Gallup, as that
would give them more time to see the small towns they passed through, as
well as the San Mateo and Zuñi Mountains.
At the last moment, Mr. Burt decided to remain on the train with them
and stop at Gallup. From there the scouts would go northwest into
Arizona, and he would go south to the Zuñi Indian Reservation.
It was the conductor on the train, who was a very sociable man, who
advised the scouts to be sure and visit the Cañon de Chelly and the
White House, which is a prehistoric dwelling carved in the rock walls
high above the stream. The White House is a wonderful palace ten times
the size of the White House at Washington.
“You know,” said the conductor, “that you might spend a year in the
Painted Desert and then come out realizing that you have only begun the
sightseeing of this wonderful Navajo country. I have been through there
several times, and each time I learn how much more there is to see.”
Consequently the scouts decided to follow the conductor’s advice and
allow themselves more time in the Desert than they had at first planned
for.
Having said good-by to the conductor, and left the train at Gallup,
their next move must be to ascertain when the freight would come in with
Tally and the horses. Until they arrived it would be impossible to ride
to Navajo Land.
“If only you could be sure that Tally’s freight would be delayed, you
might have a chance to get down into Zuñi Land with me,” said Mr. Burt.
But in this hope Mr. Burt was to be disappointed, for the freight agent
informed Mr. Gilroy that there were no night-over stops for the train
between Laguna and Gallup, as there was not much transportation service
to the small towns on the line, hence Tally and his horses could be
looked for soon after midnight.
There being no excuse for Mr. Burt to delay his journey to the Zuñi
Reservation, he now said a reluctant farewell and rode away with a
native Zuñi guide.
At luncheon, in the El Navajo hotel that day, the Captain said: “Gilly,
I’ve been talking to the manager of the hotel and he says it is a good
150 miles to the Painted Desert. That will use up a week of our time in
just going there, because the little burros are _so_ slow.”
“If there is any kind of a patented accelerator to attach to their
hoofs, Verny, I’ll get them at once: just tell me where they are for
sale,” replied Mr. Gilroy.
The girls laughed, but Mrs. Vernon persisted: “Gilly, I am not joking at
all. I really mean what I say, you ought to find some means of conveying
us to the Desert in a day or two. Now do put on your thinking cap!”
“My thinking cap, Verny, has always led others to think I was a clown
that had strayed from a circus. Hence I never use it, in order to spare
my pride.”
“Oh, Gilly! _do_ talk sensibly,” cried Julie, impatiently.
“How is that possible, Jule?” demanded Mr. Vernon.
They all laughed, then Mr. Gilroy threatened: “Just for that I’ll wear
the cap and have strangers wonder what sort of a menagerie I am
conducting across the state.”
A talk with the manager, however, revealed a way in which a day’s time
might be saved.
“I can send you on by motor to St. Michael’s Mission, where you can stay
over night and put in a much pleasanter day than in prosaic Gallup. But,
by taking my advice, you will deprive me of some very desirable
guests,” said the smiling manager.
“You are sure we can find accommodations for so large a party after we
reach St Michael’s?” asked Mrs. Vernon.
“Oh, yes! You will find ‘open house’ at any of the white folks’ ranches,
as well as at the convent school, which is a massive building of stone
and brick, equal to any in our large cities. In fact, Mr. Gilroy, I
doubt if you will want to leave the Mission in a day’s time—there will
be so much to interest you all.”
“We’ve already decided, Gilly! We say accept Mr. Walters’ advice and the
autos, and let us start the first thing to-morrow morning,” declared
Mrs. Vernon.
“Tally ought to be in by then, and I can explain to him about our going
on in advance,” agreed Mr. Gilroy. “If only there was some way to move
those burros over that 150 miles as quickly as a horse can make
it—especially a group of rested horses that will have no riders.”
“Why, I can suggest a way,” ventured Mr. Walters.
“There! I knew we’d find a way out,” exclaimed Mrs. Vernon, sighing.
“Sell your burros here in Gallup and use the saddle-horses from here to
St. Michael’s to carry the packs. Once there, you can buy a splendid
pack-horse from twenty-five to thirty dollars, see?”
“What! a decent horse as cheap as that?” exclaimed Mr. Vernon.
“Yes, because of supply and demand, you know. Be sure, after you select
your pack animals, to bargain for a native guide to go with you through
the Desert. Your own Indian may be a crackerjack but it takes an
experienced Navajo to locate the rare water-holes for a noon-day or
night camp. And water you _must_ have, you know, both for man and
beast.”
“That’s sound advice, Mr. Walters, and I’d follow it without demur, but
we can’t sell the burros. We rented them,” explained Mr. Gilroy.
“Gilly, your lease says you can leave them at Gallup, if you have done
with them, or go on and leave them at some other city, doesn’t it,”
demanded Julie, eagerly.
“Just wait a moment, and I’ll get the agreement out of my bag,” said Mr.
Gilroy, excusing himself and hurrying away from the dining-room.
After a short absence from the room Mr. Gilroy returned with the paper.
“Yes, siree! That was a fine idea, Julie, considering it came from a
girl scout. Now I can rid myself of three slow-going wards, by merely
leaving them here in Gallup. My contract exacts that I pay the fraction
of a month’s hire that I have the animals in use after the first
month’s rental. That lets me off great!”
“This is the fourth week since you rented them at Trinidad,” remarked
Mr. Vernon.
“Yes, and we paid that month in advance, you know, when we signed that
contract. All I will now have to do will be to wire the owner I am
through with the three burros and let him send for them according to
agreement. Then we can buy the pack-horses of a Navajo and go on our way
rejoicing.”