:::;::::3e TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO BJ"""- 



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

 all nioht. 



The weirdness of our ride through the long, long 

 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 month agfo. A feeling; 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 moonlio-ht. The wildness and desolation 

 of this untamed country seemed more j)ronounced 

 here, where once our home tent had been pitched. 



Although rain had not yet fallen at these high alti- 

 tudes, yet the stream in the Barranca Atenquiqui had 

 risen greatly, flooding our first camping-place. This 

 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 -^ 



