THE APPROACH 



11 



where did either besieged or besieger get water? 

 If there was ever a spring in the mountain it 

 long ago dried up, for there is no trace of it to- 

 day. Possibly the mountain-dwellers knew of 

 some arroyo where by digging in the sand they 

 could get water. And possibly they carried 

 it in ollas up the stone trail to their mountain 

 home where they stored it in the rocks against 

 the wrath of a siege to come. No doubt they 

 took thought for trouble, and being native to 

 the desert they could stand privation better 

 than their enemies. 



How long ago did that aboriginal band come 

 trailing over these trackless deserts to find and 

 make a home in a barren mountain standing 

 in a bed of sand ? Who can tell ? A geologist 

 might make the remains of their fort an il- 

 lustration of the Stone Age and talk of un- 

 known centuries ; an iconoclast might claim 

 that it was merely a Mexican corral built to 

 hide stolen horses ; but a plain person of the 

 southwest would say that it was an old Indian 

 camp. The builders of the fortification and the 

 rectangle worked with stone because there was 

 no other material. The man of the Stone Age 

 exists to-day contemporary with civilized man. 

 Possibly he always did. And it may be that 



Water and 

 food sup- 

 plies. 



The abo- 

 j rigines. 



