"The Mescalero valley. The professor says it was once an arm of the sea and it looks like it, doesn't it? Over on the Mosby side the rocks are all granite and porphyry, tilted up at all sorts of angles; but down there it is sandstone and limestone, lying flat a sure sign that it was once the bottom of a sea."
"Is the valley inhabited?" I asked.
"Down at the southern end, about fifty miles away, there is a Mexican settlement, at the foot of those twin peaks you see down there standing all alone in the midst of the valley the Dos Hermanos: Two Brothers, they are called but up at this end there are no inhabitants, I believe."
"Well, there will be some day, I expect," said I. "It ought to be a fine situation for a saw-mill, for instance."
"I don't know about that. There would be no way of getting your product to market. Old Jeff Andrews, the founder of Mosby, told me about it once he's been across it two or three times and he says that the country is so slashed with cañons that a wheeled vehicle couldn't travel across it, and consequently the expense of road-making would amount to about as much as the value of the timber."
"I see. And, of course, the streams are much too shallow to float out the logs. Well, let us get along down."
"All right. By the way, before we start, there was one thing I wanted to say: If we should happen to get separated, all you have to do is to turn your face eastward, climb up over the Mosby Ridge, and you'll find yourself on our own creek, either above or below the town. It's very plain; you can hardly lose yourself by daylight at any rate. So, now, let's be off."
The climb down on this side we found to be very much steeper than the climb up on the other had been. We dropped, by Dick's guess, about three thousand feet in the three miles we traversed ere we found ourselves in the midst of the thick timber, walking on comparatively level ground. Keeping along the eastern side of the valley, in the neighborhood of the Mosby Ridge, we made our way forward, steering by the sun for the trees were so thick we could see but a short distance ahead when we came upon one of the little open spaces I have mentioned. We were just about to walk out from among the trees, when my companion, with a sudden, "Pst!" stepped behind a tree-trunk and went down on one knee. Without knowing the reason for this move, I did the same, and on my making a motion with my eyebrows, as much as to say, "What's up?" Dick whispered:
"Do you see that white patch on the other side of the clearing? An antelope with its back to us. I'll try to draw him over here, so that you may get a shot."
So saying, Dick took out a red cotton handkerchief, poked the corner of it into the muzzle of his rifle, and standing erect behind his tree, held out his flag at right angles.
At first the antelope took no notice, but presently, catching a glimpse of the strange object out of the corner of his eye, he whirled round and stood for a moment facing us with his head held high. A slight puff of wind fluttered the handkerchief; the antelope started as though to run; but finding himself unhurt, his curiosity got the better of his fears, and he came trotting straight across the clearing in order to get a closer view. At about a hundred yards distance he stopped, his body turned broadside to us, all ready to bolt at the shortest notice, when Dick whispered to me to shoot.
It was a splendid chance; nobody could ask for a better target; but do you think I could hold that rifle steady? Not a bit of it! Instead of one sight, I could see half a dozen; and finding that the longer I aimed the more I trembled, I at length pulled the trigger and chanced it. Where the bullet went I know not: somewhere southward; and so did the antelope, and at much the same pace, if I am any judge of speed.
"Never mind, old chap," said Dick, laughing. "That is liable to happen to anybody. Most people get a touch of the buck-fever the first time they try to shoot a wild animal. You'll probably find yourself all right the next chance you get."
"I'm afraid there's not likely to be a 'next chance,' is there?" I asked. "Won't that shot scare all the deer out of the country?"
"I hardly think so: the deer are almost never disturbed down here; it isn't like the Mosby side, where the prospectors are tramping
over the hills all the time."
"Don't they ever come down here, then?"
"No, never. There is a common saying, as you know, perhaps, that 'gold is where you find it'; meaning that it may be anywhere one place is as likely as another. But, all the same, the prospectors seem to think the chances are better among the granite and porphyry rocks on the other side, where the formation has been cracked and broken and heaved up on end by volcanic force. They never trouble to come down here, where any one can see at a glance that the deposits have never been disturbed since they were first laid down at the bottom of a great inlet of the ocean."
"I see what you mean: and as nobody ever comes down here the deer are not fidgety and suspicious as they would be if they were always being disturbed."