100 THE NAUTILUS. 



At the Reed ranch, head of Black Canyon, I was left to finish 

 the Black Range alone. The Doctor had made engagements in 

 California and the ladies had schools and conventions calling 

 them to Joliet. Teodoro safely loaded my companions into an 

 auto at the Hot Springs resort and upon his return the work 

 was continued for another month by way of Black Canyon, 

 Diamond Creek (where we were detained briefly by enormous 

 speckled trout), then over the range eastward, making our first 

 camp at the ranch of Teodoro' s brother near Chloride. 



This was the forest primeval. The trail ran about nine to ten 

 thousand feet in elevation and the yellow pine, Douglas fir, 

 spruces and quaking asps were large and thick. It was our 

 highest and wildest range to date. The cattle, wild and keen 

 of scent, are trapped for slaughter in corrals with swinging gates, 

 something like monster turkey-traps. Black and silver-tipped 

 bears, and mountain lions were plentiful. A couple of untamed, 

 off-the-reservation Apaches also were hiding in what seemed 

 to be our best snail coves. We saw one a few seconds 

 but did not catch him. Deer and turkey were fairly abundant, 

 and the whole country is marked by interesting historical events. 

 Near here Dr. Fewkes had dug some of his most valued speci- 

 mens of prehistoric pottery. At one point a train of pack burros 

 had rolled down into the Las Animas country. During our 

 short stay two saddle horses also rolled down into that cavern 

 of lost souls. In one of the gulches the bones of an unknown 

 soldier had lain so long his clothing and a roll of money were 

 destroyed by the weather. On the Kingston trail a bear dropped 

 out of a tree upon a packer and killed him. Here Apache Kid 

 had robbed and burned a miner's cabin, and at another point, 

 lying in wait behind a rock, he shot a miner in the back ; and 

 when we dropped down into Chloride we met the men who fol- 

 lowed this same Apache Kid into the San Mateo range and 

 killed him — saw the mule that packed their dunnage, and lo- 

 cated the men in Chicago who sent Kid's head to the Yale skull 

 and bone fraternity. Also saw the carcass of a bull that killed 

 a ranch-owner's saddle horse, and was killed and pried off the 

 angry and pompous owner by an efficient cowboy. 



I soon found myself in the whirl of Black Range society. Off 



