A MOUNTAIN RIDE. 19 
straight over everything, walking, climbing, and riding in 
turns, until the sight of our watch-fires gladdened our hearts. 
Our poor horses were quite worn out, for they had travelled 
at least fifty miles over the pathless mountains. 
“Next day we continued the survey. Seven miles brought 
s to the entrance of Palmer’s Pass, the name given to it by 
us. Eight miles more took us to the summit, and a little 
more than two miles further on we came out upon the plain 
beyond. The summit is 5,654 feet above tide, 717 above the 
entrance to the pass, and the average grade is less than 100 
feet per mile on the surface, which could be lessened to 
Yabout 75 feet on construction. - By digging we found 
water at three places in the pass, at two of which we passed 
a night. No sign of wagon-wheels could anywhere be 
detected ; and an Indian trail which led through it was 
quite overgrown and almost obliterated. The pasturage was 
splendid, and there was no scarcity of wood. While the sur- 
veyors were running their line through Palmer’s Pass, I 
went with some wagons for supplies to Fort Cummings, and 
isited Cooke’s Cafion, which pass the fort protects. Hundreds 
of miles before we reached it, I listened with anxiety to the 
tories told me by the frontier men about the dreadful mas- 
res perpetrated by the Indians in that dread gorge. It was 
said that even the soldiers dared not stir a mile from the post, 
and that it was “ just a toss up” whether any traveller got 
hrough alive. These reports were only the surviving echoes 
f events which have made Cooke’s Cafion and the Miembres 
“Mountains memorable in the annals of New Mexican massacres. 
" More than a century and a half ago, the Spaniards, as they 
| passed northward in search of gold, discovered in these moun- 
Jains vast deposits of copper ore, much of which was virgin 
opper, so pure that it could be hammered out into plates as 
; came from the mine. At this place, known as the Santa 
’ c2 
