OVER THE MOGOLLON MESA 89 



and crime could its miles of burning desolation 

 but speak. Seven times John had traversed its 

 length, each time vowing that he would never 

 venture upon it again. The first time was as a 

 boy of eleven when his parents were emigrating 

 from Utah to Arizona; the last time, fourteen 

 years ago, with his young wife. He knew its 

 desolation intimately and he dreaded it as I, 

 who had never traveled its wastes, did not. I 

 was anxious, in fact, for the experience. 



This is the land of the Navajo and the Hopi, 

 the pagans of the desert, the land of pictur- 

 esque buttes, of gorgeously colored cliffs and 

 pinnacles, of marvelous canons, of wonderful 

 mirages. Three hundred miles of this land, 

 repellant and fascinating, lay between us and 

 Kanab, when we rode out upon it at eleven 

 o'clock one August morning. 



