:::;:::::*i: TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO ;*-""•"■" 



the mules. Our guide stampeded his lightened caravan 

 back to the trail, shouting a long-drawn "Adlos " as 

 he disappeared, and we were left alone. 



Our tents were soon pitched, and Ricardo, our clever 

 little Mexican cook and general aide-de-crwip, had the 

 Slipper prepared before the short twilight fell. It was 

 long after our little camp settled to rest that I finished 

 arrano-ino- the thousand and one thing's which a nat- 

 uralist needs in a country where birds, insects, and 

 flowers are as strange to him as if but newly created. I 

 w^alked quietly to Avhere the slowly moving water sent 

 back the clear moonlight from its surface, and sud- 

 denly the daring of our expedition came fully upon me. 

 Behind me the tent shone white through the trees, so 

 wee a mark of human presence deep in the maw of the 

 Avild harrnnca. A strong enough quake of earth, and 

 the boulders silhouetted high above against the sky 

 might loosen and slip from their moorings ; a greater 

 bubbling of water from the mountain springs, and the 

 stream would blot us out ; and yet we have left dangers 

 as great in the civilization from which we have fled 

 for a season ; all the risks of train and steamer, of dis- 

 ease and fire, from which here we were free. But what 

 of fierce men and animals ? As a matter of fact, I was 

 then far from being a good shot with a revolver, but 

 at that moment the feeling of the rough little handle 

 against my hip was infinitely comforting. 



A deep groaning — deeper than the lowest bass of 



«4 132 ^ " 



