A Buffalo Hunt in Northern Mexico. 



119 



I glanced at the sun, that first compass of the first hunters, and 

 rose in my stirrups essaying to single out the direction to the house 

 of Zuloaga. To point the locality of the Spaniard's Fountain of 

 Youth had been as easy. Oh, you say, the path of coming was 

 plain ! Yes, but — as I found before the day was done — that path 

 was one of millions winding in and out, never a skein of silk so hope- 

 lessly tangled, in and out as impossible of straightening by a novice 

 like me as some sad lives we all have known ; paths worn by wolves 

 galloping in howling packs through the South moonlight ; deer 

 paths ; and paths known only to the unlovely red children of Uncle 



THE TANGLE OF PATHS. 

 a. — House of Zuloaga. b. — Kstanque. 



Sam, who perennially tear down that way for scalps of women and 

 children and the loot of undefended ranchos ; paths now along the 

 prairie, now through the chaparral, devious and past following and 

 past finding when once lost as the flight of swallows. Oh, if I did 

 know the right one amongst the multiplied zigzag many, and could 

 keep it in shade and shine — keep it truly against the tempting 

 promises of this and that' other so friendly and familiar-looking, then 

 doubtless I could make the house. Not caring to make the trial, or 

 to be put to the necessity of making it, I snatched the rein and gave 

 spur to my willing horse. 



The gallop was over a great pastura, one of the sheep-ranges of 

 our little guide. I did not like the life of the lad. — following the 

 flock as he does day after day, without other companionship except of 

 his dog and donkey, must be lonesome, — yet it is not altogether 

 void of charm. The glories of the enchanter Distance are about 

 him everywhere. If from grasses crinkling under foot, and dwarfed 



