42 A BOOK-LOVER S HOLIDAYS 



and the work was just hard enough to keep us 

 in fine trim. 



We began by retracing our steps to the head 

 of Marsh Pass and turning westward up Laguna 

 Canyon. This was so named because it con 

 tained pools of water when, half a century ago, 

 Kit Carson, the type of all that was best among 

 the old-style mountain man and plainsman, 

 traversed it during one of his successful Indian 

 campaigns. The story of the American ad 

 vance through the Southwest is filled with 

 feats of heroism. Yet, taking into account 

 the means of doing the work, even greater 

 dangers were fronted, even more severe hard 

 ships endured, and even more striking triumphs 

 achieved by the soldiers and priests who three 

 centuries previously, during Spain s brief sun 

 burst of glory, first broke through the portals 

 of the thirst-guarded, Indian-haunted desert. 



At noon we halted in a side-canyon, at the 

 foot of a mighty cliff, where there were ruins 

 of a big village of cliff-dwellers. The cliff was 

 of the form so common in this type of rock 

 formation. It was not merely sheer, but re 

 entrant, making a huge, arched, shallow cave, 

 several hundred feet high, and at least a hun 

 dred perhaps a hundred and fifty - - feet deep, 

 the overhang being enormous. The stone houses 



