CHAPTER XVI 

 MOUNTAINEERS 



Our New Mexican mountains present for the 

 most part fronts built up into inaccessible preci- 

 pices. On fair days — and these too numerous for 

 the counting - — the high heaven seems to have drop- 

 ped fragments of its azure self into the deep clefts 

 and hollows of the rocks, so blue are the shadows, 

 so glittering and withal so unreal the peaks of por- 

 phyry. With that indifference peculiar to our des- 

 ert scenery, so insistent that it forces reiterated 

 emphasis and which is mitigated no whit by its 

 orgies of color, it has looked unmoved upon every 

 form of human struggle and suffering. Yet even 

 to this day we raise our eyes unto the hills — to the 

 splendid hidden heart of them, which continues to 

 have neither part nor lot in us or our lives which 

 endure but for a day. 



And jogging valleyward on his low headed "son 

 of the sage brush" rides the denizen of mystic 

 peaks ! Behold him and wonder ! For he has as 

 little part or lot in them as they in him. 



In memory we return to the soft tree-clothed 

 heights of the Virginia Blue Ridge ranging- in alti- 

 tude to some 6000 feet above sea level, thus leaving 

 off at a point where the mountains of New Mexico 

 start; for the average elevation of this State is 

 around 5000 to 6000 feet. The narrow, broken val- 



