:::::::::1: TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO B--":- 



sequences, as the gate-keeper should have been on duty 

 all night. 



The weirdness of our ride throuo-h the lons", Ion©" 

 night fascinates us both. We are wide-awake, every 

 sense on the alert. Scattered clouds pass across the 

 moon, shadowing the trail and changing the spreading 

 yellow-barked trees into dim ghosts. Now and then 

 some creature scuttles from our path ; twice the omin- 

 ous whirr of a rattlesnake sets our horses a-quiver. 

 Deer splash away from the shallow fords, where we 

 cross the streams. Bats fan our cheeks, while ever the 

 scarlet-capped volcan watches over us. 



We rode a little out of our way to pass our arroyo 

 camping-place. Its shrivelled barrier of thorns, and 

 the scattered bits of paper, were just as we left them 

 a montli ajio. A feehno; of sadness came over us as 

 we passed, for the last time, the well-known places ; 

 the trees and rocks which we knew so well, each fixed 

 in our memory by some association. All was silent and 

 white in the moonlioht. The wihlness and desolation 

 of this untamed country seemed more pronounced 

 here, where once our liome tent had been pitched. 



Although rain had not yet fallen at tliese high alti- 

 tudes, yet tlie stream in the Barranca Atencpiiqui had 

 risen greatly, flooding our first camping-place. Tliis 

 was the last deep gorge on the trail, and, as we came 

 out upon the high land, we broke into a gallop. Only 

 eight miles now separated us from Tuxpan, and the 



<4 360 h 



