ance to escape, something
familiar struck my senses. I could not tell what it was. It was
intangible, yet I felt there was something about that belonged to
human beings. Again I came to an upright position, peered in every
direction and listened. It was then discovered what it was that had so
affected me. It was the smell of smoke which the breeze was gently
carrying up the river. I pushed down on my course with all my strength
in hope of finding the fire, and on rounding a sharp bend was rewarded
by seeing a thin, blue streak curling up from the mountain side. I
landed a little above it and commenced clambering over great, detached
rocks, until I gained a terrace on a level with the line of smoke. I
paused to listen and heard the muffled sound of voices near me. The
voices came from the other side of a small promontory around which
I crawled. My soft rubber boots made no sound, and as I rounded the rock
I was surprised to find myself almost alongside of two shepherds. One
of them was stooping over the fire stirring something in a stew pan,
while the other was rolling cigarettes in corn husks, their backs
turned toward me. Previous experiences with these simple people of the
mountains had taught me how superstitious and easily frightened they
are, and wishing to gain some information from them as well as something
to eat, I let the point of my iron shod paddle strike a rock, at the
same time saluting them with 'buonos dias mis hermanos,'--good day, my
brothers. The men sprang to their feet and turned around at the
unexpected salutation. Then a wild yell rang through mountain top and
ravine and they dashed away like a pair of frightened deer. At every
hail for them to stop they only redoubled their efforts to escape and
soon disappeared up the ravine. I sat down and made a breakfast off the
provender they had left behind and enjoyed it as I never enjoyed
anything before. I also absorbed a pig skin flask of Spanish wine
which afforded me great consolation in my exhausted condition. I then
took off the dress and dried myself before the fire and rising sun, in
hopes the shepherds would take courage and return; but they never came
back. Before dressing I left a Spanish dollar on the upturned bottom of
the stew pan, and returned to the river much refreshed and all traces of
hunger gone.

"I had not proceeded more than a league when I observed a man seated on
a mule, occupying a point of rock o