ears you are the first to find this buried city. In
a thousand no denizen of this valley has ever left it, and within
the memory of man, or even in their legends, none had found them
prior to my coming other than a single warlike giant, the story of
whom has been handed down from father to son.

"I think from the description that he must have been a Spaniard,
a giant of a man in buckler and helmet, who fought his way through
the terrible forest to the city gate, who fell upon those who were
sent out to capture him and slew them with his mighty sword. And
when he had eaten of the vegetables from the gardens, and the fruit
from the trees and drank of the water from the stream, he turned
about and fought his way back through the forest to the mouth of
the gorge. But though he escaped the city and the forest he did
not escape the desert. For a legend runs that the king, fearful
that he would bring others to attack them, sent a party after him
to slay him.

"For three weeks they did not find him, for they went in the wrong
direction, but at last they came upon his bones picked clean by
the vultures, lying a day's march up the same gorge through which
you and I entered the valley. I do not know," continued the old
woman, "that this is true. It is just one of their many legends."

"Yes," said the girl, "it is true. I am sure it is true, for I have
seen the skeleton and the corroded armor of this great giant."

At this juncture the door was thrown open without ceremony and a
Negro entered bearing two flat vessels in which were several smaller
ones. These he set down on one of the tables near the women, and,
without a word, turned and left. With the entrance of the man
with the vessels, a delightful odor of cooked food had aroused the
realization in the girl's mind that she was very hungry, and at
a word from the old woman she walked to the table to examine the
viands. The larger vessels which contained the smaller ones were
of pottery while those within them were quite evidently of hammered
gold. To her intense surprise she found lying between the smaller
vessels a spoon and a fork, which, while of quaint design, were quite
as serviceable as any she had seen in more civilized communities.
The tines of the fork were quite evidently of iron or steel, the
girl did not know which, while the handle and the spoon were of
the same material as the smaller vessels.

There was a highly seasoned stew with meat and vegetables, a dish