blocks, and in banks along the ledges, the
cactus had burst under the heat, as it were, into the spontaneous
combustion of flowery flame. To the traveler passing beside them their
red blooms blazed with the irritating superfluity of a torch-light
procession at noonday.

The trail leads down to a flat ledge which overlooks the desert, and
which is the observatory whither countless generations of
mountain-sheep have been wont to resort to survey the strange world
beneath them--with what purpose and what feelings, it remains for some
imaginative writer of animal-stories to inform us. From the ledge to
the valley below the trail is free from obstructions, and broader, more
beaten, and less devious than above, indicating that it has been formed
by the generations of men toiling up from the valley to the natural
watch-tower on the heights. Reaching the ledge, the prospector found
that what seemed from the angle above to be an irregular pile of large
boulders was an artificial fortification, the highest wall being toward
the mountains. Entering the enclosure the prospector dismounted,
relieved his horse of its saddle and his burro of its pack, and
proceeded to prepare his midday meal. Looking for the best place where
he might light a fire, he observed, in the most protected corner, a
flat stone, marked by fire, and near it, in the rocky ground, a
pot-hole, evidently formed for grinding maize. The ashes of ancient
fires were scattered about, and in cleaning them off his new-found
hearth the man discovered a potsherd, apparently of a native olla or
water-jar, and a chipped fragment of flint, too small to indicate
whether it had formed part of an Indian arrowhead or had dropped from
an old flintlock musket.

"Lucky strike!" observed the prospector. "I was down to my last
match." And, gathering some mesquit brush for fuel, and rubbing a dead
branch into tinder, he drew out a knife and, rapidly and repeatedly
striking the back of its blade with the flint, produced a stream of
sparks, which fell on the tinder. Blowing the while, he started a
flame. When the fire was ready the man shook his canteen. "Precious
little drink left," he said. "I wish that potsherd carried water as
the flint-chip does fire. However, there's lots of cactus around here,
and they're natural water-jars. My knife may get me a drink out of the
desert's thorns, as well as kindle a fire from its stones. And right
here's my watermelon, the bisnaga,