ledges here and there on the
face of the wall.

"One particular cave which seemed to be a rather large one was about
fifty feet up, and immediately below it were two or three small ledges,
which, after I had looked the place over, seemed to me to be
sufficiently wide to hold a ladder; and I came to the conclusion that if
I wished to explore one of these caves I had better try the one in
question.

"In my outfit I had two large tents, nine by fourteen, and the poles of
these tents, it seemed to me, would answer very well for ladders if I
connected them by pieces of rope. It was not necessary to make the steps
very near together, and by cutting notches in the poles and tying pieces
of rope across I succeeded in making two very good ladders, one fourteen
feet long, with the two top poles--one from each tent; and two small
ladders, each about seven feet. I made these last from the four upright
tent poles, there being two to each tent, as you know.

"The foot of the cliff was rough, and the first fifteen feet or so we
could climb easily to a broad ledge, then there came a space between
nine and ten feet in height, which was as smooth and perpendicular as a
wall. Here my first ladder was put up. Two small ledges above this, some
three feet apart, and a wider ledge four feet higher, allowed me to
climb up, without the use of ladders, to another ledge.

"From here I ran another small ladder up to a ledge which was between
two and three feet wide; from this ledge to the entrance of the cave was
about twelve feet, and my fourteen-foot ladder answered finely, but the
difficulty was, it had to stand so straight that it was rather ticklish
business going up; one could not help feeling that a slip or a little
backward jerk would topple it over into the valley below, and as from
the ledge where it stood to the bottom was some forty feet, a tumble on
to the rocks would prove most unpleasant.

"However, my Mexican, Antonio, held the ladder, and by very careful
work I succeeded in reaching the mouth of the cave and crawling in. I
had no sooner entered than I felt pretty sure it had never previously
been visited by any one since the original inhabitants left it. The
first thing I did was to take a stout piece of twine from my pocket and
fasten the end of the ladder to a piece of rock. Then I felt easier.

"There were numerous bits of broken pottery scattered about and one
nearly perfect specimen. Besides these there was a very inte