Pecos were
so fearful of the desecrating thief that they carried this ancient bell
away and buried it in the mountains--where, no man knows: it has never
since been found. You have been told so often that the mountains of
America lack human and historic interest that you have almost come to
believe it. Does all this sound like lack of human interest? Yet it is
most of it 8,000 feet above sea level, and much of it on the top of the
snow peaks between ten and thirteen thousand feet up.

* * * * *

At eight o'clock Tuesday, April 18, I set out up the canyon with a span
of stout, heavy horses, an exceptionally strong democrat wagon, and a
very careful Mexican driver. To those who know mountain travel, I do not
need to describe the trails up Pecos Canyon. I consider it a safer road
than Broadway, New York, or Piccadilly, London; but people from Broadway
or Piccadilly might not consider it so. It isn't a trail for a motor
car, though the scenic highway cutting this at right angles will be
when it is finished; and it isn't a trail for a fool. The pedestrian who
jumps forward and then back in dodging motors on Broadway, might turn
several somersaults down this trail if trying experiments in the way of
jumping. The trail is just the width of the wagon, and it clings to the
mountain side above the brawling waters in Pecos Canyon, now down on a
level with the torrent, now high up edging round ramparts of rock sheer
as a wall. You load your wagon the heavier on the inner side both going
and coming; and you sit with your weight on the inner side; and the
driver keeps the brakes pretty well jammed down on sharp in-curves and
the horses headed close in to the wall. With care, there is no danger
whatever. Lumber teams traverse the road every day. With
carelessness--well, last summer a rig and span and four occupants went
over the edge head first: nobody hurt, as the steep slope is heavily
wooded and you can't slide far.

Ranch after ranch you pass with the little portable houses for "the tent
dwellers;" and let it be emphasized that well folk must be careful how
they go into quarters which tuberculous patients have had. Carry your
own collapsible drinking cup. Cabins and camps of city people from
Texas, from the Pacific Coast, from Europe, dot the level knolls where
the big pines stand like sentinels, and the rocks shade from wind and
heat, and the eddying brook encircles natural lawn in trout pools and