CHAPTER II 

 ACROSS THE NAVAJO DESERT 



WE dropped down from Buckskin Moun- 

 tain, from the land of the pine and 

 spruce and of cold, clear springs, into 

 the grim desolation of the desert. We drove 

 the pack-animals and loose horses, usually one 

 of us taking the lead to keep the trail. The 

 foreman of the Bar Z had lent us two horses 

 for our trip, in true cattleman's spirit; another 

 Bar Z man, who wdth his wife hved at Lee's 

 Ferry, showed us every hospitahty, and gave us 

 fruit from his garden, and chickens; and two of 

 the Bar Z riders helped Archie and Nick shoe 

 one of our horses. It was a land of wide spaces 

 and few people, but those few we met were so 

 friendly and helpful that we shall not soon for- 

 get them. 



At noon of the first day we had come down the 

 mountainside, from the tall northern forest trees 

 at the summit, through the scattered, sprawling 

 pinyons and cedars of the side slopes, to the 

 barren, treeless plain of sand and sage-brush 



