Mike Price was a prospector by nature; his prospecting through the summer and autumn of 1892 in the Wagon Wheel Gap country of southwestern Colorado was a mere incident in a long career. Phoenix, Ariz., was his head-quarters, and he would fain return there for the Indian summer of its winter climate; for he hated snow and the hard cold of the Rocky Mountain camps, where, as he said, a man must hibernate until spring. But Phoenix was the best part of 600 miles away across a thinly settled frontier. Burros and blankets and food for the journey were to be had only for ready money, and Price had not “struck it rich”; indeed, he had not struck it at all. One after another the parts of his camping outfit had gone into a pawnbroker’s shop at Creede, in the progress of a luckless season, until the late autumn found him without burro or blanket or bacon, and bereft even of the “gun” (a six-shooter) which General —— had given him in recognition of his services as a scout.

It was late November when I met him, and Price was making a precarious living at odd jobs for civil engineers. One of these was my friend Hamilton, who had known Price for years and who proved himself a friend in need to both of us, for he brought us together and proposed the journey which took us to Phoenix, and which gave me six weeks’ experience as a “burro-puncher.”

You could trust Hamilton to find a way out. There is scarcely a phase of frontier life that he did not know from personal experience, and he saw at a glance that Price’s position and my own would exactly complement each other in furthering a plan which was common to us both. Price wanted to reach Phoenix, and so did I; he knew the way but was without the means of travel, while I, knowing nothing of the country, yet had some store of savings.

Wages were high at Creede. The miners were getting $3, and I, as an unskilled laborer, working with a gang that was cutting a road down Bachelor Mountain from the New York Chance Mine to Creede, was paid $2.50 a day. Our board and lodging cost us $7 a week, but they were worth it, and, even at that rate, there remained a considerable margin for possible saving.

Hamilton knew my plans; he was one of the few whom I had told, in the course of my wandering, of the object of the expedition. We had been spending an evening with a company of kindred Bohemians at the house of a mine superintendent, and were returning together to his quarters in the quiet of two o’clock in the morning through a world white with the first snow of winter and dazzling under a full moon.

I had money enough to take me to Phoenix by rail, and it seemed the height of folly to go in any other way, so I began to explain why I wished to walk and why I had already walked most of the way from the Atlantic. Hamilton listened patiently, but without interest, I thought, until abruptly he turned upon me with approval, immeasurably beyond my desert, yet showing so sympathetic an insight into the possible service of such work, that I saw again, as by a flash, the rich human quality that had already endeared the man.

“And so you worked with the road gang on Bachelor Mountain to get enough to grub stake you to Phoenix?” he said, and he laughed aloud. Then he swore—deeply, resonantly, and from the heart.

Price was sent for on the next day, and, in the afternoon, he turned up in Hamilton’s office, a dark, bearded, keen-eyed Irishman, slender and wiry, and all alert at the prospect of getting back to “God’s country,” which in his phrase meant Arizona. Soon, not merely Hamilton and I, but our friends the barrister and the editor and the grave mine superintendent were involved in preparation for the trip. We accompanied Price to the pawnbroker’s shop, where he identified his belongings, and I redeemed them. Then we all set about selecting additional blankets and a fresh store of food.

Our pack animals could not have carried their loads, had we taken all that was pressed upon us for the journey. Price borrowed a shot-gun from the private arsenal that was put at our disposal, and I a six-shooter, and we gladly accepted gifts of tobacco until our pockets were bursting with plenty.

Weird as it was, our little caravan was but the typical prospector’s outfit as we moved in single file through the winding street of the mining camp, an object of interest only to the four friends who bade us good-by with many slaps on the back and with affectionate oaths. Price was mounted on his Indian pony and I on Sacramento, a burro of uncommon size, while our effects were packed on the backs of two other burros, Beecher and California by name, with two of California’s foals trotting abreast as a running accompaniment to the show.

Past the shops and saloons and dance-halls and hotels we wound our way on among the frail shanties at the outskirts of the camp, until we struck the wagon trail that led southward through a ranching country in the direction of the pass over the mountain to Durango. Snow lay lightly on the ground; vast tracts, however, had been swept clear by the wind, so that ours was an unobstructed course, except where we had to plough through occasional drifts, which our animals did with ease, tossing the feathery flakes until they flashed again in the clear sunlight of a frosty morning. The burros were at their best, keeping the trail at a steady pace that never hinted at the habit of wandering. Price was high-spirited at the thought of Phoenix, and, between snatches of song, he regaled me with the glories of the Indian summer which we should find across the range. I could well share his light-heartedness. As far as Creede I had walked alone, picking the way with ease, but, between Creede and Phoenix, there lay a stretch of the fast-fading frontier which I longed to cross on foot, yet knew that I could not without a guide. And here, as by miracle, one had appeared in the person of Price, who knew the land and them that dwelt therein, and who was more than guide in being a philosopher and friend. The keen air quickened our blood, as we breathed deep of its rarefied purity and felt the mild warmth of the winter sun like the glow of rising spirits. The mountain-peaks rose white and still above the dark ruling of the timber line, yet radiant in the light, and serene in a peace that passeth knowledge; and the head waters of the Rio Grande swept past us in streams that were dark against the snow, but ablaze where they reflected the sun.

It was long past noon before I thought of stopping, and then I found that there were to be no mid-day stops on this expedition, for the days were so short that camp had to be made between four and five in the afternoon, and, as it was difficult to get started in the morning much before eight o’clock, we could give at the best but little more than eight hours in the day to travel.

For some time that afternoon we had been in the shadow of a mountain to the west, and the light was fading fast, when, as we rose upon a knoll above the stream whose bed we were ascending, Price saw that it was a good camping-ground, and the caravan came to a halt. Wood was abundant about us, so that water was soon boiling, and slices cut from a frozen shoulder of beef were presently frying in the saucepan, while the tea drew to a fearful strength at the fire’s edge. After supper and a smoke, we made ready our bed. An old piece of canvas, some seven feet by fourteen, was first spread upon level ground; then we arranged upon half of it all the gunny-sacks that we had brought as cushions for the pack-saddles. These formed a mattress, over which we spread our blankets, drawing up finally the unused half of the canvas as a top covering. Going to bed consisted simply of taking off our boots and folding our coats for pillows, then disappearing with all speed under the blankets, with the canvas drawn well over our heads to keep out the bitter night cold of that altitude in late November. Our animals browsed near the camp, the bells about their necks tinkling as they moved, until they, too, found shelter and settled down to rest.

When I wakened it was from deepest sleep, and I looked out from under cover for some sign of day, but there was none. The stars were shining undimmed, with the effect of nearness which brought back vividly an illusion of childhood. Nothing in their position gave me a hint of the time, but Price, on waking, saw at a glance that the dawn was near. Scarcely was the fire lit and water put on to boil before the dark bulks of the mountains to the east were clear cut against a brightening sky. Breakfast over and the dishes washed, we had a smoke and, having fed the animals from a little store of grain, we saddled and packed them for the day’s march.

Nothing in the previous day’s experience suggested the rigor of this afternoon’s progress. All went prosperously in the morning, for we were still following the wagon trail, and the burros kept it as by instinct. Only the snow was deepening, which was a reminder of the warnings we received in Creede that we were attempting the pass dangerously late in the year. What with snow and the loss of leaves, the “look” of the region had so far changed since Price passed that way in spring that, with small wonder, he could not find the lead of the foot-trail that crosses the Divide. Again and again we struck in to the left only to discover presently that we were following a false lead, until Price, impatient of further dallying, boldly led the way in an ascent of a trackless mountain whose farther side, he knew, would disclose the lost trail.

A long, steep climb by a well-trodden way is difficult at the best for pack animals, but we were now in a forest with the course obstructed by undergrowth and the trunks of fallen trees, and the uncertain footing covered with treacherous snow. The burros took it splendidly from the first, straining their muscles in a toilsome climb that was doubly hard because of its obstacles. But as the hours passed and the way grew more difficult, their strength began to fail. Then came long resting spells, followed by spurts of frantic climbing. Again and again we seemed to be nearing the top, only to find the crest of a ridge with another summit towering far beyond. Presently the burros were falling from sheer fatigue. With a few yards of upward struggle, down they would sink exhausted, and, after letting them rest, Price and I had our hands full in dragging them to their feet again.

It was nearing sunset when we gained the top, and, once there, all our troubles vanished. We passed from the cover of the wood out upon a treeless slope, swept clear of snow and covered by the past summer’s growth of grass, brown and dry and excellent fodder. A stream flowed through the natural meadow, and on a ledge above it, as plain as day, was the winding trail making off in the direction of the Divide. We gratefully camped there that night, while our tired beasts gorged themselves with grass.

Whatever the difficulties of crossing were to be, we were clearly not to be hampered by foul weather. The night was as still and cold as the last had been, and the morning again was cloudless. We were up by starlight as before, and the camp-fire was sending volleys of glowing sparks into the surrounding darkness when the signs of dawn appeared. I went to the brook for water and was back just in time to see the sunrise from the camp. We were in a narrow valley that stretched southwestward in an upward trend toward the summit of the range. From its northeastern opening we could see far over a confused mass of mountains whose outlines grew clearer in the return of day. With infinite majesty the light streamers flung themselves across the sky, paling the bright stars; and, when a distant snow-peak caught the first clear ray, all the others seemed to lift their heads in an ecstasy of praise and welcome. In another moment the eastern wall of our valley was fringed by a tracery of fire, where level beams shone through the trees which stood out against the sky. And last, upon us in the depth of the valley, the sun rose, prodigal of his splendor and of his gifts of light and life.

I had left Price squatting near the fire with his face to the east as he cut slices of bacon into a saucepan. On my return from the brook I found him still sitting there, but grown oblivious to bacon. His forearms were resting on his knees, while loosely in one hand he held a knife and a piece of bacon in the other. From under an old felt hat, long, black, matted hair fell upon his neck and mingled with a dark, unkempt beard. His face, blackened by the smoke of the camp-fire, was lifted to the eastern sky, and his eyes were on the sunrise. Such a look, transfixed with reverence and wonder, seemed to link him with some early epoch of the race, when the sense of power and beauty awoke in man; and as he drew himself erect without lifting his eyes from the scene before him, “It’s not strange,” he remarked, “that men have worshipped the sun.”

The snow grew deeper with every mile of the march that morning. We were nearing the Divide, and one evidence of it was the piercing wind that blew down the gorge. Not since the morning of the first day out had either of us ridden; for the animals had as much as they could do to carry themselves and their packs, and now we found that we must help them by opening a path through the snow. It lay a foot deep before us, then two feet and more as we mounted the Divide, so that Price and I were soon alternating in the work of breaking a way. One of us would plunge through until fagged out, then the other would take his place in treading down the drift, and so we forged ahead, a few yards at a time, wet to the skin with melting snow and cut to the bone by the wind.

I do not know how far we travelled that day; it could not have been many miles, and I do not care to think of possible consequences, had we been overtaken by a storm, instead of having the fairest possible winter weather. But we put in more than eight hours of continuous work and were repaid in the late afternoon by reaching camping-ground on the western side of the Divide, almost as good as that which we found for the night before.

The next day’s, Tuesday’s, march was one that dwells delightfully in memory—not for any element of excitement, but for the simple joy of it. All day we descended by a trail that wound through caÑon after caÑon, crossing and recrossing the streams whose waters were flowing toward the Pacific, as those of the day before were to find a final outlet in the Atlantic. It was cold, but it seemed like spring in contrast with the day before, for the sun shone bright, and birds were in the trees, and here and there the snow had melted, giving to the soil the suggestion of returning life.

The burros plainly shared the feeling of relief in reaching a more passable region, and the art of burro-punching began, consequently, to disclose its difficulties. From one side and then the other of the trail they would break away in all directions, exploring the surrounding country, never with an air of mischief, but always with a sober, dogged perversity that was the more exasperating because it wore a mask of reason. Once back into the trail, they might keep it faultlessly for miles on end, and then, from no apparent cause, begin once more to wander. They were most difficult to manage at the fords. Generally they scattered to the four winds at the first approach to water, and when we had corralled them again and forced them down to the brink, they would stand calmly, planted ankle-deep in the stream, resolutely determined not to move. It was then that Price gave vent to real profanity, and I am bound to own that it was effective. When beating and prodding and the milder invective failed to urge the burros forward, Price would stand back, pale with rage, and begin to swear, calling upon all his gods and blasting the reputations of his beasts unto the third and fourth generation of their ancestors. By some subtle perception they seemed to understand that this meant business, and slowly at first, but presently, as though they rather enjoyed the water, they waded through and started down the trail beyond.

We camped that night in a narrow caÑon whose level bed was well grown with trees and walled by scarped cliffs, which rose sheer above it. Price said that it formed a miniature Yosemite, and certainly it made good camping-ground; for with plenty of wood and water, it was well protected from the wind, and we slept there in great comfort. But our fare was growing monotonous. We soon exhausted the supply of beef and had since been living upon bacon and bread, so that we heartily welcomed the sight of a ranchman’s cabin near the end of the next day’s march, for there we purchased a peck of potatoes and thus enlarged our bill of fare to bacon and “spuds” and bread and gravy.

Thanksgiving-day was celebrated by faring sumptuously in the evening and sleeping under cover. And it was the more delightful celebration for being wholly unpremeditated. There was no prospect through the day of anything but the usual march and camp in the open at night. We were plainly in a more populous region, for we had struck a wagon trail again, and repeatedly, in the morning, we met farm wagons laden with solemn families in Sunday dress. As the afternoon wore on we grew hungrier for thinking of Thanksgiving dinners. At dusk we were passing a ranch upon which the hay presses had just ceased working for the day. A little farther down the road we overtook two men who were about to enter a wooden building, which proved to be a deserted school-house. Price hailed them and they turned, standing in the open door. Practised as he was in the amenities of the frontier, it took him no time to strike up an acquaintance, and soon we were bade welcome to share the school-house as a camping-place.

Our hosts were a young American frontiersman and his “partner,” an Indian, who together had a contract for pressing hay on the neighboring ranch, and who were living meanwhile in this deserted building. Having admitted us, they completed their welcome by doing everything in their power for our comfort. They arranged with the owner to pasture our animals on the ranch for the night, and showed us where to find wood for a fire and where on the floor to spread our bed. And when the evening meal was ready, they proposed that we should club together, giving us of their fresh meat and roasted Indian corn and steaming hot bread in exchange for our “spuds” and bacon. But we had some chance of making return, for they had no tobacco to compare with ours, and far into the night we sat talking, over pipes fragrant of good weed.

Price and I were making progress in acquaintance, and every day I had fresh cause for self-congratulation at my extraordinary luck in having fallen in with so good a guide. Of excellent Irish family, Price was not without education and a taste for letters, although he had chosen, almost as a boy, the career of an adventurer on the frontier. And now at middle life, having ranged the Southwest as few men have done, and having seen all phases of its life and shared most of them, he was looking forward to further casual living, perfectly content so long as he had a camping outfit and could wander as he pleased over the face of nature. That some day he would “strike it rich” he never doubted—and may his faith come true. Meanwhile he was getting a good deal out of life. Nature in her milder moods was a constant solace and a joy to him. In long marches through golden Indian summer days, he sang and spouted verses of his own, and told me veritable Ulysses’s tales of men and their strange ways. The few books which he had read he had made his own, for his memory was retentive, and he never forgot, apparently, a face or a name, so that his progress through the country was like a walk about his own neighborhood.

With the instinctive, gentlemanlike reserve of the Western frontiersman, he never questioned me about myself; he was far more interested in what knowledge I might have gathered, which he could add to his own. Oddly enough, it was the little reading that I had done in philosophy that seemed to attract him most. Many a night when it was mild enough to sleep with our heads uncovered we lay side by side, “overarched by gorgeous night,” gazing into the starry firmament, and I would tell him what I could of theories of the universe from Thales to Herbert Spencer, feeling all the while the tension of his mind as he reached out eagerly for these guesses at the mystery of things.

It happened that I had been reading “Coningsby,” at Creede, and Prince slipped the copy into his pocket as we left the camp. He devoured it by our camp-fires at night. The story held him, but most of all he was spellbound by its literary charm, and he added a quaint reason for his liking in the remark:

“You know,” he said to me, “Lord Beaconsfield was always square with the Irish.”

His national partisanship was of the stanchest, and he had always given to the Irish fund when he could; but the outcome of the fight in Committee Boom No. 15 had been too much for him, and he would stoutly maintain that never again, so long as the “traitors” who had turned against Parnell were in the ascendant, would he interest himself in furthering Home Rule—threads of vital connection which were a little strange, I thought, between points so widely severed as St. Stephen’s and the deserts of Arizona.

Elsewhere I have already sketched in outline our trip as we walked south together from Durango to the San Juan, then through the Navajo Reservation to the high plateau of northern New Mexico, where, utterly deserted by fair weather, we camped for a week, while a cold wave swept over us, forcing the thermometer down to ten and twelve degrees below zero, and nearly freezing us and our animals in the still cold of the winter nights.

Even after we got under way again and were making progress southward in the direction of the “rimrock” of the Mogollon Mountains, persistent ill-luck followed us in the shape of almost nightly falls of snow and rain, which added nothing to the comfort of sleeping on the ground or walking across an almost trackless waste. But if we were disappointed here, Price’s promise of Indian summer was abundantly fulfilled when once we had waded through the snow in the great primeval forests that cover the northern slopes of the Mogollons, and made the abrupt descent of the “rimrock.” It was like the contrast of Florida with our Northern winter. The live-oak and budding cottonwood and the warm sun and sprouting grass gave us royal welcome from the cold and snow beyond; and, at the end of the first day’s journey in this region, we came out upon a ranch. It was thirty miles to the nearest neighbor, and the ranchman and his wife were glad to see anyone, even casual “burro-punchers,” like Price and me. There chanced to be a considerable company at the ranch that night. An outfit of three men who were hunting mountain lion through the range for the sake of the bounty on their scalps had come there to camp, bringing with them the carcass of a bear. And the postman, whose beat took him from the Santa FÉ line southward through some Mormon settlements and on to scattered ranches north of the Tonto Basin, was also quartered there. So that we sat down more than a dozen strong to dine on bear steak and potatoes and bread and coffee; and when dinner was over, Price and I again had the good fortune to find that our tobacco suited well the taste of the company. We were gathered now in the living-room of the cabin. Some of the men were seated on the floor and others in rough, hand-made chairs about a wood fire in a large, open fireplace. The talk ranged at random over phases of hard living known to such men as these. It was varied and rich and sometimes racy. In it Price shone as a bright, particular star. None had travelled the Southwest so thoroughly as he, or experienced so much of its characteristic life. Then his native readiness at narrative stood him in good stead, and, penniless prospector that he was, he held unchallenged the centre of the stage.

The door of the dining-room stood open, and, when I had finished my pipe, I joined the ranchman’s wife, who sat beside the table in a rocking-chair, holding in her arms her oldest child, a boy of five or six. She seemed glad to have someone to talk to. The conversation at table had swept from end to end in a manner diverting to her, but in which she as little dreamed of joining as a bird would venture with untried wings into a high wind. She was too delicately reared to be at home in the thickening tobacco-smoke of the living-room and so she was alone with the child, the hired woman being in the kitchen. I praised the country side which she and her husband had chosen as their home, and told her how well it contrasted with a region only a few miles to the north; but, if I found a way to her heart at all, it was in genuine admiration of the boy, whose light hair rested in moist curls about his glowing face, as he lay sleeping in his mother’s arms. She was not a discontented woman—far from it; she was young, and her eyes shone with health and with vital interest in the things about her. But it was rarely that she saw anyone from the world outside, and I was a stranger, and when I owned to having been in the Northwest, she told me eagerly that her own people and her husband’s lived “back east in Minnesota,” where they both were born and bred.

How can I suggest the pathos of it? She was not complaining and yet, as she went on telling me of an earlier time, it was almost as a captive might have spoken of the wide range of living when he was free. Life in constant contact with her friends and the breadth of their many interests was in such striking contrast to existence on a ranch, with the nearest neighbor thirty miles in the offing, and with never a look from year to year over the rugged hills that formed the horizon.

One could see at a glance the opposite effects of the change upon the two natures. Her husband, native-born and country-bred, like herself, and schooled as a man must be whose bringing up is in a community which draws its blood and traditions pure from New England, yet had become more a frontiersman every year, in whom the memories of earlier things faded fast before the dominant realities of his new surroundings. She, on the contrary, cherished these memories of her own—her home and friends and church associations and Chautauqua circle (she told me particularly of that) until they were enshrined within her, and one could but see that, however loneliness might oppress her, she had an escape which must have furnished at times an enjoyment keener, perhaps, than any which real experience would have brought.

I have forgotten its name, but I think that it was known as “Young’s Valley,” a region some distance south of the “rimrock” and north of the hills which hem in the Tonto Basin. There were several ranches there, and a well-defined trail led on, by way of San Reno Pass, to Phoenix. When we entered the valley Price was all for veering off to the southwest and reaching Phoenix by the Natural Bridge, which he wished me to see. We left the trail near the first cabin which we passed in the valley, a deserted cabin for the time, and struck across the grass-grown hills in search of another way. Soon we were in a maze of trails; they were leading in every direction, but they were cattle-paths, and we came upon herds feeding over the winter-brown hills. It was a gently rolling country at the first, where Price had not the smallest difficulty in steering a course; for, although he had never been there before, yet the way had been described to him and he had no fear of losing it. Our only danger lay, apparently, in exhausting our provisions before reaching an inhabited region beyond. But we thought little of that, and entered light-heartedly enough upon an exploration that was new and attractive to us both.

Trouble began with the weakening of our burros. We had very little grain when we left the Tonto trail, and we counted upon fodder enough from a grazing country. But the grass grew thinner as we went, and the leanness of the cattle attested the leanness of the land, until we began to fear that our beasts would not have strength enough to pull through. Moreover, the country became increasingly rough, so that the effort of travel was the greater. Soon there came a day when our animals were weak and tottering under their loads, and we ourselves had to begin the march on a breakfast of tea and a few boiled beans, which exhausted our store. Still Price was confident of getting through, and, if the burros could hold out, there was prospect of plenty by night.

In the middle of the morning we found lying beside the trail a cow that was plainly dying. For an hour we worked over her, trying to discover evidences of a wound or of a broken leg, and trying, too, to ease her pain. I left her alive regretfully, but Price advised against shooting her.

Matters grew serious that afternoon. The trail became hopelessly lost, so that not even Price, with his developed instinct, could find it again. We were in the heart of the hills now, with caÑons opening in strange confusion about us. One after another we explored them, only to find each a “box-caÑon” at the end. Price was sure that our desired country lay just beyond, and it was maddening, late in the day, to acknowledge that he could find no way out but the one by which we entered. It was a sorry retreat; hungry and worn we went supperless into camp. By rare good luck, however, we hit upon camping-ground where there was more grass than we had seen for some time, and in the morning our burros and the pony were comparatively revived, fit again for a hard journey. And we gave it them.

Price and I had had nothing to eat for twenty-four hours, and very little then. Meanwhile we had been working hard in keen mountain air, and I was so hungry by the time that we got back to the cow, now dead beside the trail, that I proposed our eating some of her. Price quickly put an end to the plan, however, not on hygienic grounds, but by explaining that the cattlemen, if they found her mutilated, would conclude that she had been killed, and would make matters lively for us in consequence, hanging being the not uncommon penalty for this offence.

One does not keep close count of days in wandering over a frontier, and it was only an aggravation of our plight to remember that it was not Sunday merely but Christmas-day as well. But if Christmas heightened the sense of hardship, it furnished an admirable setting to its end. By trusting his instinct for a short cut, Price brought us out in the middle of the afternoon upon open hills, from which we not only saw a section of Young’s Valley, but, rising clear from the middle of it, a column of blue smoke from the chimney of a ranchman’s cabin. We wasted no time in covering the intervening miles and then we lifted, light-heartedly, the latch of the road-gate and, with the easy assurance of the frontier, drove our animals into the yard beside the corral. For some reason we had not been seen from the cabin, so Price walked on to the door, while I mounted guard over the burros. From a seat in the sun on an old hen-coop I could watch them as they nibbled the short grass, while from the cabin came peals of laughter, denoting that Price had fallen among friends who were keeping Christmas festival.

I was willing enough to rest outside, knowing that we had reached a hospitable roof and that a dinner was assured. Sitting there for some time, I presently began to question what was keeping Price, when the cabin-door opened and two women appeared. As they walked down the footpath to the gate, I gathered that they were neighbors returning from a Christmas call. But this was the least interesting inference, and I was totally at a loss for others. The wonder grew as they came nearer. They were young and faultlessly dressed, and one of them was beautiful. Their dress was of the kind that charms with its perfect simplicity and the air of natural distinction with which it is worn. They rested frank eyes on me for a moment as they passed and nodded pleasantly, speaking their thanks with sweet voices, as I stood holding open the gate. Who they were remained a mystery, and I was content to have it so, for they left me not without a sense of Christmas visitation, which stirred again the memories of my own “God’s country.”

The ranchman was a Virginian, tall, fair-eyed, and soft of speech, and when he and Price came out together they were stanch friends on the strength of an earlier acquaintance, and we had the freedom of the ranch. We unpacked and corralled the animals and then made ready for dinner. Not for two days had we tasted food, and now we were seated with our host and hostess and their two sons at a table which groaned under sweet potatoes and roast corn and piles of bread and great dishes full of steaming “hog and hominy,” and with it all, the best of Christmas cheer. For two days we stayed at the Virginian’s ranch and then, having purchased from him a fresh store of food, we resumed the march by way of the Tonto Basin and Fort McDowell to Phoenix.

On New-year’s-day we were camped at Fort McDowell; and, when we set out early on the next morning, there remained but about thirty miles to Phoenix, so we resolved to cover it in a single march. Night found us still some miles from the city, but the night was clear and flooded with moonlight. The moon made plain the way, yet played fantastically over the face of the country. Long reaches of white sand were converted into Arabian deserts, with pilgrim caravans moving across them; the irrigated ranches were transformed into tropical gardens, whose luxuriance was heightened by the exquisite softness of the night, and then there were stretches of uncompromising Arizona desert, dusty and cactus-grown and redolent of alkali.

It was nearing midnight when we entered the town. Price directed the way to a corral where he was known, and where we left the animals feasting on fresh alfalfa, while we fared forth to see his friends. It was precisely as though Price had invited me around to his club. He led the way to a saloon, and as we entered it, I saw at once its typical character. At the left of the entrance was a bar, gorgeous with mirrors and cut glass, while down the deep recesses of the room were faro and roulette tables and tables for poker. The groups about them were formed of “cow-punchers,” and prospectors and “Greasers” and Chinamen, and even Indians, all mingling and intermingling with a freedom that suggested that in gambling there is a touch of nature that makes the whole world kin.

But more immediately interesting to us was a group which stood beside the bar. It was made up, as I found, of politicians, high in territorial office, all of whom knew Price and hailed him cordially while asking after his luck. For some time we stood talking with them, then one of their number, himself not a politician but a business man, proposed our joining him at supper. We accepted, I the more delightedly because he, of all the group, had most attracted me. Tall and very handsome, he had the bearing of a gentleman, and what he told me of himself confirmed my own impression of a richly varied past. Far into the night we talked, and I could well believe him when he said that the fascination of the life which he had led on the frontier had so far grown upon him that, while he was glad to go back at times to his former home in New York, he could no longer remain contented there, hearing as he always did after a few months, at most, the call back to the wild freedom of the plains. It was under the spell of what he said, enforced by my little experience as a “burro-puncher,” that I went to sleep that night on a bed of alfalfa in the corral; and when I wakened in the morning and found letters urging my return to the East, I was conscious of an indifference to the idea which was wholly new to my experience.