LIFE IN THE FAB WEST. 83 



mouldering walls, he gazed silently around, where in ages 

 past his ancestors trod proudly, a civilised race, the tra- 

 dition of which, well known to his people, served but to 

 make their present degraded position more galling and 

 apparent. Cowering under the shadow of a crumbling 

 wall, the Indian drew his blanket over his head, and con- 

 jured to his mind's eye the former power and grandeur of 

 his race that warlike people who, forsaking their own 

 country for causes of which no tradition, however dim, 

 now exists, sought in the fruitful and teeming valleys of 

 the south a soil and climate which their own lands did 

 not afford, and, displacing the wild and barbarous hordes 

 inhabiting the land, raised there a mighty empire, great in 

 riches and civilisation. 



The Indian bowed his head, and mourned the fallen 

 greatness of his tribe. Rising, he slowly drew his tattered 

 blanket round his body, and prepared to leave the spot, 

 when the shadow of a moving figure, creeping past a gap 

 in the ruined wall through which the moonbeams played, 

 suddenly arrested his attention. Rigid as a statue, he 

 stood transfixed to the spot, thinking a former inhabitant 

 of the city was visiting, in a ghostly form, the scenes his 

 body once knew so well. The bow in his right hand 

 shook with fear as he saw the shadow approach, but was 

 as tightly and steadily grasped when, on the figure emerg- 

 ing from the shade of the wall, he distinguished the form 

 of a naked Apache, armed with bow and arrow, crawling 

 stealthily through the gloomy ruins. 



Standing undiscovered within the shadow of the wall, 

 the Taos raised his bow, and drew an arrow to the head, 

 until the other, who was bending low to keep under cover 

 of the wall, and thus approach the sentinel standing at a 

 short distance, seeing suddenly the well-defined shadow 

 on the ground, rose upright on his legs, and, knowing 

 escape was impossible, threw his arms down his sides, and, 

 drawing himself erect, exclaimed in a suppressed tone, 

 "Wa-g-h!" 



. "Wagh!" exclaimed the Taos likewise, but quickly 

 dropped his arrow point, and eased the bow. 



