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.”