y--"

"This here valley?" queried Sundown, immediately interested.

"Sure! Well, I can sabe all that. I seen 'em."

"Seen 'em?"

"Sure! Why Arizona's got more leavin's of history and dead Injuns and
such, right on top of the ground, than any other State in the Union.
Why, right over there in the canon of the Concho there's a hull ruined
Injun village--stones piled up in little circles, and what was huts and
caves and the leavin's of a old irrigatin' ditch and busted ollas, and
bones and arrow-heads and picture-writin' on the rocks--bears and
eagles and mounting-lions and hosses--scratched right on the rocks.
Them cliffs there is covered with it."

"Them?" queried Sundown, pointing toward the canon, "Do they charge
anything to see it?"

"Well, seein' they been dead about a thousand years, I reckon not."

"A thousand years! Huh! I ain't scared of no Injuns a thousand years
old. How far is it to them picture-things?"

"'Bout three mile. You can take a hoss and mosey over if you like.
Figure on gettin' back 'round noon."

"Any snakes over there?"

"Comf'table thick. You might get a pretty good mess of 'em, if you was
to take your time. I never bother to look for 'em."

Sundown gazed at his length of nether limb and sighed.

"Snakes won't bother you none," said Wingle, reassuringly. "They get
tired, same as anybody, and they'd have to climb too fur to see if you
was to home."

Sundown rose and saddled a horse. He mounted and rode slowly toward
the rim of the distant canon. At the canon's brink, he dismounted and
led his horse down the trail, stopping frequently to gaze in wonderment
at the painted cliffs and masses of red rock strewn along the slopes.
High up on the perpendicular face of the canon walls he saw many caves
and wondered how they came to be there. "Makes a fella feel like
sayin' his prayers," he muttered. "Wisht I knowed one."

He drifted on down the trail, which wound around huge fragments of rock
riven from the cliffs in prehistoric days. He was awed by the
immensity of the chasm and talked continuously to his horse which
shuffled along behind paying careful attention to the footing. Arrived
at the stream the horse drank. Sundown mounted and rode along the
narrow level paralleling the river course. The canon widened, and
before he realized it he was in a narrow valley carpeted with
bunch-grass and dotted with solitary cypress and infrequent clumps of
pine. He paused to insp