aid Jim, proud of his new pet. "You see he is just
about the color of the earth so that he can't be seen; all he has to do
is to keep still and his game comes to him."

Then Jim slipped the horned toad into his pocket. The sun had now sunk
down behind the distant Sierra. Above it glowed a few gold bars of
clouds. In the east was a broad band of blue with a crimson veiling
above it.

This pomp always accompanies a desert sunrise or sunset.

"The Indians are going to make camp," Jim announced.

It was true, they had stopped near two hills a couple of miles west of
the mesa, where there was a growth of a few stunted trees. The braves
slid from their ponies and turned them loose to graze, while the squaws
busied themselves gathering wood. The children scampered around free as
wild colts and playing as children will whether they are Indian or
white.

"There must be a hundred of them anyway," said Tom.

"About the number that had us corraled back in those mountains," I
said.

This was the first time that we had seen a family party of Indians and
it was an interesting sight.

"It is time we made our own camp," said Jim.

So we backed slowly from the edge of the mesa, keeping under shelter of
the brush, until we were far enough away not to be seen, then we stood
up and made our way to the deserted village.

"I'm not going to sleep in that house," I declared, "and have a
tarantula crawl out and grab me."

"Gee, but you are particular," said Jim, "anyway we can cook our food in
one of these houses, so that the Indians down there won't see the
smoke."

So we prepared a meal inside of a house for the first time since we had
left the captain's cabin on the plateau. If anyone had told us that we
were going to have supper in a house on top of a mesa in New Mexico we
would have thought they were crazy. But strange things happen in a
strange country.

After supper we prepared to turn in or turn out rather, because we were
not going to sleep in the house.

"Let's go over to the other side first," said Jim, "and have a look at
the Indian camp."

This we did. And it gave us a strange sensation, standing near the edge
of the mesa with nothing but the void darkness below us for hundreds of
feet.

It was a picturesque sight, to see the Indian fires making little spots
of flame out on the plain. Sometimes faint sounds come from their
direction borne on the evening wind. Overhead the innumerable stars were
shining with sp