would afford him both food and drink. This part of his
meal finished, the Apache might gather other dead yucca stalks, split
them, and often find within small stores of honey.

Many plants furnish small seeds rich in nutriment. These are gathered in a
basket, ground on a metate, and the oily mass formed into a ball with the
hands. The Apache assert that a lump as large as one's two fists would
subsist a man for two days; but in addition he would eat wild greens of
various kinds, either cooked or raw. One of the principal vegetal foods of
the Apache is the mescal--in their language, _nata_. Nothing can give a
better idea of the economic life of these people than a description of one
of their annual mescal harvests.

The mescal harvest occurs in the season of new life and growth, when the
call from the wild is strong in the blood, and like a class of
children--for they are but grown-up children--they pour out into the wilds.
From the camp where they have passed the winter they take to the trails
which lead to the mescal hills.

For some hours after leaving the huts on White river the path leads across
the hot, dusty desert; then it reaches the rim of White river canon and
follows its edge so closely that a pebble tossed from the saddle would
drop into the torrent more than a thousand feet below. How musical the
roar of the stream, and how cool its waters look! As the trail passes some
especially dizzy spot the Indian women lean away from the sheer edge in
fear. For miles the trail traverses the bluff. At times the river is out
of sight and hearing, then it emerges again and both eye and ear receive
its greeting. At the hour when the pinon trees stretch their long shadows
across the land the Indians urge their horses down a steep, winding trail
and arrive at the river's bank. Here they ford, follow the course of the
stream for a while, and then at a bend reach an open flat dotted here and
there with shapely live-oaks. In this park-like opening the long
straggling line comes to a halt.

[Illustration: Cutting Mescal - Apache]

Cutting Mescal - Apache

_From Copyright Photograph 1906 by E.S. Curtis_

All the worldly possessions of the Apache woman are packed on the horse
which she and her children have ridden. The mother, with the youngest in
her arms, first clambers down, followed by the little girl four years of
age; she then removes the blankets that cover th