[Idah Meacham Strobridge, Old Campfire Days, from The Land of Purple Shadows (1909)]

 

OLD CAMPFIRE DAYS.

          HERE, in Roseland—in this land of the sun, this land by the sea—where each night as I fall asleep I am fanned by flower-sweet breezes; where (growing close to the head of my bed) a white La Marque clambers to the wide eaves; where orange and lemon trees in bloom brush the pillars of the veranda on one side of the patio, making the air heavy with their over-sweet perfume, there come to me recollections of other nights—nights spent by the campfires, and under the stars of the desert.

          Do you care to listen—to let me tell you of those nights—and their days? Will you let me tell you of one ride, in particular, that memory now brings back to me?

          Ah! such a glorious dawn it had been—that day when we began our journeying. All purple and blue with the morning mists was the valley, turning golden as the sun climbed higher. Out through the gate we rode, and away from the ranch; and on—up the wide valley. Across brush-covered mesas, through a narrow pass in a low-lying range of hills—hills that were pink and gray, with never a sign of verdure; falling in with a "cattle outfit"—cowboys driving beef-cattle to the railroad, the railroad that was miles and miles away.

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We kept pace behind the lowing herds, on the long drive to water; but at nightfall we reached an inviting cañada, where a beautiful stream tumbled and shouted down its rocky way; and there we spread our camp-outfit and built our fires. After the stock had been watered (we had seen to it that they had their suppers ere we had our own) ; and when we had eaten our fill of the roast ribs, hot and juicy, sent over from the cowboys' camp, we foregathered about a huge brush-fire and listened to frontier stories, while the low-hanging stars came out in a sky all purple with dark. In the creek we could hear the ripple of water, and the twitterings of sleepy birds disturbed by the fire-glow; but farther off, the cattle made no sound—tired, lying down after the long drive. Only the man on guard, whistling "Kathleen Mavourneen," and the crunching of the brush under his horse's hoofs, came to us out of the shadows.

          Back we went to our camp; and to sleep under a thin thread of a moon.

          Morning! Saddle—mount, and away! Up where the air was clear, and cooled by the wind blowing from the snow-heights, under an azure sky where hung clouds like battle smoke. Away down on the plains we could see the dusty banner unfurled by the slow-moving cattle on their way to the stockyards! And further down the bleached levels—we watched a herd of antelope drift away, looking like balls of thistledown carried along by the wind. We watched a wild stallion lead his little harem warily up and down hills over a well-worn trail to the springs we had but just left; and we saw him (as he scented our recent presence there) take fright, and—without waiting to drink—

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go racing off and away with his little band at his heels. Off to his grazing place, and to—safety!

          Crossing the range, we descended into a long cañon filled with groves of cottonwoods where the leaves fell upon us as we passed beneath, and where the quaking aspens shivered and shuddered in the chill autumn wind that swept down from the snow-heights, bringing tidings of approaching storms to levels down below. The trees were arrayed in every imaginable shade of crimson, and russet, and brown. Nature was announcing her "Fall Opening," and every leaf was dressed for the season's occasion. Some wore small spots of red, others great splotches of the vivid color; streaks and stripes of yellow and of brown dappled the leaves. None went unadorned. Only the junipers, up near the snow-line, were attired in conventional green—quite unconcerned at the frivolous ones gone mad in a riot of gaudy color. The scarlet and yellow of the buffalo berries shone through the greens growing along the creeks. Bunch-grass, blown by the wind that was scattering its seeds, grew on the slopes; and from it our ponies snatched mouthfuls as we passed.

          Leaving the cool heights, we went down to the hot, dry valley and joined our slow-moving team which, in our morning hours up aloft, we had almost forgotten.

          All the rest of the day—surrounded by wavering mirages—across dry lakes and their shores of drifted sand, we rode. Over the bleached alkali plains, toward the ever receding foothills which we must reach before the violet shadows should grow gray, and gray shadows turn to black.

          As we rode we tapped our heels against the horses' dusty sides at every step, urging them toward the distant spot where the steam from the hot springs at the cañon's mouth beckoned us on, the long streamer of misty white floating like a magic veil—blowing lightly

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to the Southward. It waved and beckoned; but at sunset we seemed no nearer to it than we had been at noon; and twilight found us yet many miles away. Not until the purpled shadows of the night closed in upon us, and faint stars began to shine, did we find ourselves there.

          We who were in the saddle had been riding far in advance of our commissariat, so—while waiting the arrival of the wagon with its supplies for our hungry horses, and ourselves—in the dim starlight we went on a voyage of discovery through the labyrinth of wickedly boiling springs (of all sizes, and apparently without number) that in the darkness seemed an array of frightful monsters with yawning jaws, ready to draw us down with them into the black depths. It was weird—uncanny, to go about cautiously pushing a foot along to feel our way lest we step into a too-near caldron. In the faint light we could discern half a dozen ramshackle buildings of unpainted wood. They were grouped irregularly about a half-hundred of the evil-smelling holes where sulphur-waters boiled and bubbled, and steamed and gurgled incessantly. A dense vapor hung over the place ; and soon our clothing was damp from its touch—as though we were under a fine rain. The earth for half a mile around (as morning showed us) was crusted with a greenish deposit from the overflow. No spear of grass, not a tree, nor shrub other than the stunted greasewood and sparse sagebrush, grew on the tableland over which the boiling waters spread.

          So—striking matches (which the desert wind as quickly put out!) we made our timorous way from spring to spring. From a rusty tin we drank of its healing waters—each spring yielding a yet more nauseous draught than its predecessor; and we left them, and groped our way through the steam and

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murkiness (fearful lest we slip into some of the treacherous vent holes), on toward the shacks which loomed up unnaturally tall in the world of mist, waiting us in unfriendly silence.

          Up and down the length of the porch of the one-time "Hotel" we went; our feet clattering noisily on the loosely laid boards. There had been a time, now long in the past, when the springs had enjoyed something of a reputation as a health resort; but now—it would seem—they were quite deserted. However, we would try to rouse some one, if human beings were there. We rapped; we stamped; we holloaed—to hear our voices come back to us in mocking echoes. Echoes answered echoes through the empty rooms. Again—louder, as we struck with doubled fists on the loosely hung doors. Silence—absolute silence, save for the hoot of an owl above the springs. On the cracked panes of the curtainless windows our knuckles made a vigorous tattoo, but only the scurrying of rats and mice within answered us. It was evident that no other human beings than ourselves were within many and many a mile; the place was empty—abandoned. And an empty house—in the desert and at night—seems the loneliest thing in the world.

          The rattle of nearing wheels was answered by quick whinnyings from our horses, and we turned from our eerie surroundings to meet the camp-wagon, and make ready our supper. Soon, in the clearing near the weather-worn shacks, we had a cheery campfire roaring.

          What a good thing life is, to be sure, when one is young, and healthy, and hungry, and the feet are eager to go their way on the far-reaching, long, brown trail!

          Over and over, we turned the spit on which we had skewered tender and juicy slabs of yearling beef-ribs, while we shaded our eyes from the heat and the fire-

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glow, with bent arms held across our foreheads, and watched the meat grow brown and crisp as the fat dripped into the blaze, and the appetite was whetted as it never is at the table that is spread under a roof. Oh! the savory smells that rise from the meal that is cooked on a bed of glowing coals! How hungry we were—how light-hearted we were! How good it seemed to be there, where we circled the fire like gypsies; how glad we were just to live and laugh, and find content in the hour!

          By and by, we watched the fire die down to a bed of red embers; watched them dull, and then darken, and then become a white ash. And with the smoke from the blackened log, was blended that of the "Golden Scepter" as it floated up from the men's briarwoods. The talk died down with the fire, and we dreamed the time away, as all who watch a dying fire always do dream. In fancy, one goes riding away to that land where all our dearest dreams come true.

          Then a coyote yelped from a near-by hill, startling us with his staccato cry ; and once more we were roused to a consciousness of the time and place. To bed! A night of deep sleep—sleep under the blurred stars; to be ready for the morrow! So the camp beds were unrolled and spread out on the mineral-whitened earth, and we lay down (still amid the fine clouds of warm and sulphurous steam) and fell asleep to the rumblings and mutterings of half a hundred springs, and the mournful wail of the lone, lean coyote.

          We awakened to a golden day! We had slept late (tired from our long afternoon across sand-hills and alkali flats) and the sun was in our faces. We opened our eyes to a transfiguration! No longer were the vapors gray and ghostly. Changed by the magic of the morning sun, rainbow-colored wreaths of mist

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floated lightly everywhere about us. The early sky was amethyst; the hills were burnished gold. Up and away! The day was glorious; and—today—the world was ours. Breakfast; break camp; mount; and onward!

          Before us were the mountains. The road went up, and higher. It is good to climb the heights when the blood is young.

          "Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride." Away with wheels! Give me the bridle-rein. To drive, is to be a slave—to shackle attention to the team and the road; for the road may be filled with badger-holes and boulders, scarcely passed over by man once in five years. But in the saddle! Ah! there one's horse is given his head, and one's thoughts and eyes have freedom—free to roam as they will; to go a-seeking out the little things which otherwise would surely be missed.

          To know the desert well (to be close friends with it, and then finally to be taken into its confidence) one must of necessity either travel on foot or ride in the saddle. If the distance one would journey be far, then into the saddle! But to drive— Why, one misses most of the pleasures, and all of the little discoveries.

          We left our team—that followed the road which ran along by the foothills—while up and down deep cañons we went, and where there was never a sign of road, or track, or trail. Riding in sunlighted shallows, where high walls, close at hand, still lay in their deep morning-shadow. Quail ran swiftly up the slopes; and sage-chickens—that the horses flushed where they scrambled through the slate-strewn uplands—rose with a whirr and rush of strong wings, as they flew in great flocks to hillsides beyond. The loaded shotguns lay in our laps, and we shot from the saddle; and riding

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along the steep slopes we picked up our game without dismounting.

          Less than a mile away, three deer calmly looked down on us as we laboriously climbed upward; but when we stopped, taking fright they went like a wave over the hills and melted into the distance. Up and down another ridge; and we came upon a Shoshone village tucked so out of sight that it was startling to discover our brown brothers living there. Far from the railroad and the towns that so soon teach them the white man's ways, they were almost aboriginal in dress, and seemed a different clan from any we had known. Theirs was the dress of those who lived in the land when the white invader first found his way there. Still they were eating dried seeds and the things eaten by their forebears before them; still they lived in huts wattled with rabbit-brush and willows. None spoke any English, though some of them knew what we said. So, giving to one of their number—an old, old man crooked of limb, and weather-furrowed of face—cigarette papers and a sack of tobacco, we turned our reins again across the horses' necks, and were off once more on the long trail.

          We found an abandoned mining-claim—scarcely more than a prospect—yet there had been enough work done to show us that some one—some time—had hoped, and worked, and failed, and lost heart, as so many had before him. The broken rock was red-rusted with age and the storms; an elderberry tree had grown up, barring the doorway of the cabin. How strong he must have been when climbing the mountains in the beginning! How wearily his feet must have dragged when he turned and went down, and away! And then; was the itch for the pick-handle in his palm again—and did he go to other mountains, to meet other failures? It is the old, old story of the old prospector.

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          We shot at a coyote, and—missed him; and could not find it in our hearts to be sorry. We sat by a spring a full hour, watching an "ant-lion" that lay in wait for unwary ants, which trapping, he dragged mercilessly down to his dungeon. We found a place where bees had hidden their stores; and became their robbers. Arrowheads, we found; fashioned by the untamed Red Man in the days when he made war on his white brother. We saw a mother-coyote carry a jackrabbit home to her young ones; and we left her at peace in her den.

          No mountain sheep had we seen, though finding their tracks; and in one of the water-trails made by wild creatures we saw the pad of a mountain lion.

          We reined in our horses on the high ridge of a bald mountain, where the wild winds buffetted our clothing, and we held to our hats with both hands; while we sat there among trees that grew slantwise—trees which from long bowing their heads to the storms, now leaned to the ground like old and bowed men.

          We faced the four winds; they seemed all blowing at once. We looked at the world beneath and about us. Our eyes sought still other mountains far away, yet hemming us in, lying fold upon fold; gray here, and blue in the distance, the highest peaks hooded with the first snowfall of the year.

          At our left—blue in the sunshine, in the shadows shading to lilac—lay Table Mountain. Vertical rocks rose from its top, walling its uttermost rim—close-walled with granite and porphyry rising from one to three hundred feet high, and through which but three or four breaks gave entrance to the level, grass-covered plateau there. To that haven, hundreds of wild horses came daily to graze, till deep snows drove them into the valley.

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          Tales have been told of how cowboys riding hard after a fast-running herd of wild horses, have caught an instant's glimpse of rare little black foxes that live in the rocks.

          In a ravine beyond the mountain, is the wonder of all that range. Unnamed by any, almost unknown by any except the stockman who rides the ranges, is the Cañon of the Titans. At least, that is the name we gave it.

          Immense, imposing, the symmetrical rocks rose in huge masses from the point of a sage-covered hill projecting, like a promontory, into the wide cañon. Surely they must have been sawn in some mill of the gods, for no haphazard chance could make them so true. From eighteen inches in thickness to those that were more than two feet through, the dark, reddish-brown monoliths seemed to have been squared, and sawed, and planed as though by a giant master-workman. Thirty feet high they stood, some standing higher; some not over ten. Side by side, like posts, standing on end, they covered acres innumerable.

          Here, they stood in perpendicular masses, like timbers suddenly turned to stone; over there, hundreds were lying horizontally as though piled in that way by giants who had placed them there for building their castles. As before the Giant's Causeway, and the Devil's Post Pile, and others of Nature's similar fanciful vagaries, one stands and wonders, overwhelmed and silent. We climbed to the divide at the farther side of the cañon and gazed down on them from that height. We went up the cañon to get a long vista. We drew deep breaths of wonderment, and regretfully turned away.

          We were in the saddle many days, going whither our fancy willed. It was late October, and the air was

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like wine. Long distances were covered without either tiring our horses or ourselves. The spicy smell of the junipers; the bitter-sweet of the sage; the mingled odors of many weeds that the horses trampled under foot—all these come to me now and here; and I close my eyes and am back again on the wild-horse trails over the Kennedy mountain! The memory of it all is so fresh that it comes close to me—is here. Again I journey through the desert-dried seas; once more I cross plains of shifting sand, with their leprous spots of alkali. I remember how we lost our trail one day —and were ourselves lost, and spent long hours straying hither and thither trying to find an old road. Then, when night suddenly fell, we were forced to halt at that pool of stygian blackness—"The Mud-Hole" —and under the clouded sky make our camp. No supper had we, nor could we drink of the inky waters of that mysterious spring. Under the sunlighted sky they might have seemed less eerie, but we came in the dusk and left before the sun had found us out. On the badger-bored, dust-harried clearing about the pool, we spread out our blankets, and laid down to sleep. But no, we slept not. Whirlwinds of black dust, and the troops of wild horses that came down to drink, were not of those things that encourage sweet slumber; and in the gray dawn we harnessed, saddled, and rode out to meet the brightening day. Even the mishap that made us enforced campers at the "Mud-Hole" had not spoiled the day, or our joy ; there had been so many more things that were delightful, that this was only as a passing event on a long and happy journey.

          It seems but a day since I rode those heights with a good horse under me, and all the great blue arch of the desert-sky overhead, Yet, it is all the world away! Sighing, I look down at my wrists, almost fancying I

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will see shackles which have been snapped thereon. A prisoner! For call ourselves free agents as we may, yet are we slaves to the work-world, and always—always necessity somewhere tugs.

          Sometimes in the night, when I lie down to sleep here among the roses of the Southland of the West, I hear the querulous barking of a little coyote that comes down the arroyo—perhaps to make raids on the chickens of my neighbors across the way. I have a very friendly feeling for the little fellow, even so be he does come with malice prepense; for the sounds of the sharp young barks are reminders of those I have heard under the desert stars, and I grow homesick for the old life of the alkali plains, and sorry for the little gray waif that has the courage to come so close to the fringe of the big city. I hope that no one will kill him—that he will not get caught in a trap; poor, little, vagrant coyotito!

          One cloudy day's end we halted beside a stream flowing out of a cañon, which was part of a ranch where we found a quartette of Mexicans. The old house was falling to pieces, but such as it was, they offered us the shelter it afforded. For a dust storm was blowing up the mesa. We declined their proffered courtesy, preferring to spread our blankets on the sweet, fresh-cut hay stacked in the barn. But gladly did we gather with them when they brought from the little lean-to kitchen (which smelt of onions, and garlic; and had "jerky" and strings of red chiles hanging on the wall) the things so tempting and savory. The carne, and corn and frijoles, and many and various other dishes of Mexican cookery. Ripe, red tomatoes, lettuce fresh from the garden, bread white and sweet, and just out of the oven; coffee, hot, strong, and with-

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out milk; fresh meat taken from the glowing coals; fruit that was but now picked from the trees! What would you better, or more?

          Then—when supper was over, and the table cleared of its dishes—resting on a couch of furs arranged for my comfort (for what Mexican is ever unmindful of the courtesy due a woman?) I listened to songs, and to stories. Songs which have never been written, learned from the lips of another. Songs that are fast disappearing—crowded out by the new education.

          Now—years after—the lilt of the music comes back and I hear again, in fancy, the voices of those dark-skinned men singing to us, away off there in the dilapidated old ranch-house, at the foot of the gray, grim mountains. All around was the desert's night-silence; and within, the songs and the stories. Stories of wild days back in rough districts; of deeds of daring, coupled with bits of outlawry ; of reckless, dare-devil riding, and raiding. Tales told in broken English, mixed with the soft, sibilant language of Spain.

          The evening winds came up from the sage-scented lowlands, across the alfalfa-fields, and the orchard, and in at the open windows of the smoke-blackened room, blowing the flickering candle-light alternately into brightness, and then semi-oblivion. The candle, thrust into the neck of an empty bottle for support, stood on the bare boards of the rough table around which, or in shadowy corners, were scattered the men whose dark-skinned faces showed dimly in the glow of the fickle flame. The wind-blown candlelight in its vagaries made strange, grotesque expressions to come and go on the half-hidden faces of Mateo, and black-bearded Manuel, and little Vitoriano, and the big Basilio-- Basilio of the sweet tenor voice, singing to us the simpatica songs of Spain. The smoke from the cigar-

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ettos made blue streamers float toward the ceiling in lazy undulations. Our eyelids, by and by, grew heavy; and lulled by the melody of the singer, we listened dreamily, and so went drifting—drifting-

          Then some one sprang up to say that the hour was late, and there was mucho trabajo to be done on the morrow; so—with a hearty "buenas noches!" all around—we left them and went down to our beds in the barn-loft, on the fresh-stacked alfalfa, where we dreamed of the Alhambra, and the dark eyes of Spain, and those things they have lent to the New World since the far days of Cortez. So we drifted into sleep in our clover-sweet beds, with the horses in the stalls beneath steadily grinding their hay.

          We rode; and rode the days away! And on one of those last days we came to an open cañon that, once given up to Chinese placer miners, is (other Chinamen will tell you) now given over to two little moon-eyed ghosts. It is such a pretty, pleasant hollow in the hills that one is prone to doubt the truth of their story; but they will tell you that once upon a time gold-dust was found in the gravel in the bottom of the little rosebush-edged stream, and that because of it the creek banks were soon lined with Chinese dug-outs and tents made of old sacking. The gold mining prospered, and the little men planted gardens where they raised the vegetables that they used; and one of their number molded bricks of mud—the sun-baked abodes—and he built him a good house, and started a store. In it, on the shelves, were Oriental supplies ; and under the counters were stored the things gotten from the "white devils"; and a portion of the largest room was set apart for Joss, where they could worship before his image, and so propitiate him. The smoke from the tapers ascended and mingled with the odors from the "yen-she"

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pipes; and there the little blue-bloused men sat together of evenings, and gossiped, and gambled, and were happy.

          But one day an unseen evil Spirit came among them, and in a black hour stood at the ear of one, saying: "Do murder! Do it! Do it now!" And listening to the persuasive voice of the evil one, and seeing a shining and sharp knife lying on his palm, he yielded—for he had not prayed to Joss nor burned as many tapers as formerly, and the god was angry, and he was left unprotected—and in that hour a foul murder was done. So, lessened by one was the number of yellow-skinned miners who kept on digging in the creek-bed for gold.

          There followed a trial, by white men; and then the conviction; and then a hanging in the jail-yard off at the County-seat. But the little yellow-skinned men dug daily in the creek, seeking gold; and their number was lessened by two.

          But those who were left working day after day in the placers, began telling strange tales soon—telling how shovels, and buckets, and picks which they laid down when quitting work with the sun, were taken up by mysterious hands, and used every night.

          In the dark some one stood at the windlass—turning and turning—hoisting up the gravel from the shaft; while another, down in the bottom, filled the buckets all the night long. In the dark, every night, these two came; came back from the Nowhere. Then the little miners, affrighted, fled as stampeded sheep scatter; and so the place became deserted.

          Here, one night, we camped near the store where still (it is said) little yellow ghosts sell goods over the counters all covered with dust, to others who come out of ghostland; and by the shaft where the creaking windlass (they say) still turns and turns in the nighttime.

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          Just at twilight, when the day's violet shadows were turning to gray, we halted our horses, and there in the gravel-dump at the shaft—when I washed out a bit of the diggings—I found a nugget. A very, very small one it is true, but it was gold. So the story of gold being there is true. That being true, may not the story of the little blue-bloused ghosts be true, also? I, for one, shall not dispute it.

          It was Hallow-e'en when we camped there. Perhaps that fact may have had something to do with strengthening my belief.

          On the creek-bank, among the wild sweet-brier and brook-mint, we spread our beds. And there, that last night of October, by our campfire of blazing juniper-boughs, we told stories of past Hallow-e'ens. With the warm fire-glow on our faces we sat in the lonely cañon many and many a mile from other creatures of our kind. Deer were in the hills, and down below bands of antelope swept along the plain. Remembering they were there, we did not feel lonely.

          We had dragged huge branches of the green juniper to camp, and we built a great fire; it lighted a wide circle where—at the edge—the dug-outs and the old adobe stood in the shadows. Into the fire we threw great boughs of the resinous greens, and each would blaze up in a magnificent illumination—a veritable Christmas-tree with every branch and twig a-glitter with tinsel and gilt. And each of us hung wish-gifts there for the dear ones who were not with us—for who ever looks into the heart of a campfire whose own heart does not go out to some unnamed ausente?

          With outward-turned palms shading our faces from the heat of the roaring, crackling green limbs, while golden sparks went flying upward toward the silver stars, we watched the green boughs burn to pink, looking like branches of pale rose-coral from far Hawaii.

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And we grew silent with the dying fire, and we saw ghosts—ghosts in the coals where wavering shadows danced and flickered; but they were only memory's spirit forms, and those that were well beloved. The two little Orientals who (it is told) haunt the cañon, came not; or, if they did, came while we slept, and—moving ever so softly—made no sound at the windlass, and our sleep was undisturbed.

          After the day dawned, yet before the sun broke the morning twilight of the cañon, with my face pressed close to the pane, I peered through the dusty windows of the old adobe. My curiosity whetted, I was not satisfied in seeing no more—I must pass within. So finally I effected an entrance. Spiders stretched nets across dusky corners for unwary flies, and mice scurried away into the rubbish which littered the place. On the counters—built in "Melican-man" fashion, and which made me wonder why—lay dust an inch deep; and as I moved (instinctively stepping as lightly as I could, lest someone—something be disturbed) the empty house echoed loudly my tread. Save in the larger of the three rooms, nothing remained bearing witness to any former occupancy. A gallery high up at one end of the store held a small temple erected to Joss—the Joss that had not been great enough, after all, to ward off evil spirits; and now deserted by those who had placed him in the midst of a shrine greatly bedizened and betinselled, and decked with gaudy rice-paper flowers, and many-hued tassels of silk. About him grinned, and grimaced, and stared an imposing array of small gods; all arranged in the long shelf-like gallery from which depended dozens of paper strips, vividly crimson, and inscribed with big, black Chinese characters. These fluttered and rustled in the morning breeze blowing in through the open door—the only movement in the empty house.

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          Much incense had been burned, if one was to judge by the many half-consumed tapers still there. One god—hideous and gnome-like—seemed to have been especially chosen for the supplicating prayers. Was it the "god who sends money?" Doubtless the weather-beaten coolies, washing the creek for gold, prayed oftenest to the gold-god. It is to be feared, however, that the supplications miscarried, and the little yellow men with the tip-tilted eyes lighted the punks in vain. Ah, well! we whose eyes are set at a less oblique angle, sometimes find the money-god is deaf to our prayers, in spite of the punks we also burn. In this fact may be found a tie of kinship between the little men of the Orient and their Occidental brothers.

          I came out of the shadows that lurked in the old house which the little yellow man had built out of the sun-dried bricks he molded in the long-ago. I turned from the shadows and the silence, and met the morning sun coming in across the threshold. The years had been many since his rays had trailed across the bare floor; it was not for me to bid him enter. I closed the door tightly behind me, forcing the sunlight back—back! Again the house was left to the ghosts and the gods, and the squirrels and mice, and the little black crickets in the walls, that shrilled to the silence.

          Up from the cañon depths we went. Up and away to the heights of purer, sweeter air.