e with
aparejos, and a sawbuck saddle with kyacks. On these, we managed to
condense our grub and utensils. There were plenty of horses, so our
bedding we bound flat about their naked barrels by means of the
squaw-hitch. Then we started.

That day furnished us with a demonstration of what Arizona horses can
do. Our way led first through a canon-bed filled with rounded boulders
and rocks, slippery and unstable. Big cottonwoods and oaks grew so
thick as partially to conceal the cliffs on either side of us. The
rim-rock was mysterious with caves; beautiful with hanging gardens of
tree ferns and grasses growing thick in long transverse crevices;
wonderful in colour and shape. We passed the little canons fenced off
by the rustlers as corrals into which to shunt from the herds their
choice of beeves.

The Cattleman shook his head at them. "Many a man has come from Texas
and established a herd with no other asset than a couple of horses and
a branding-iron," said he.

Then we worked up gradually to a divide, whence we could see a range of
wild and rugged mountains on our right. They rose by slopes and
ledges, steep and rough, and at last ended in the thousand-foot cliffs
of the buttes, running sheer and unbroken for many miles. During all
the rest of our trip they were to be our companions, the only constant
factors in the tumult of lesser peaks, precipitous canons, and twisted
systems in which we were constantly involved.

The sky was sun-and-shadow after the rain. Each and every Arizonan
predicted clearing.

"Why, it almost never rains in Arizona," said Jed Parker. "And when it
does it quits before it begins."

Nevertheless, about noon a thick cloud gathered about the tops of the
Galiuros above us. Almost immediately it was dissipated by the wind,
but when the peaks again showed, we stared with astonishment to see
that they were white with snow. It was as though a magician had passed
a sheet before them the brief instant necessary to work his great
transformation. Shortly the sky thickened again, and it began to rain.

Travel had been precarious before; but now its difficulties were
infinitely increased. The clay sub-soil to the rubble turned slippery
and adhesive. On the sides of the mountains it was almost impossible
to keep a footing. We speedily became wet, our hands puffed and
purple, our boots sodden with the water that had trickled from our
clothing into them.

"Over the next ridge," Uncl