CHAPTER XXVII 
HANK HOTCHKISS 
In two more camps we had accounted for everything 
along Black River. There now remained only the 
block of country between us and the North Fork 
of the Mimbres and a strip beyond extending to the 
tier of sections worked north from McKnight. 
The continental divide, by the way, runs through 
here between the watersheds of the Mimbres and the 
Gila, into which Black River flows. The Mimbres 
drains to the east on the Atlantic slope of the di- 
vide, and though the stream vanishes completely in 
the desert near Deming its indicated course is toward 
the Gulf of Mexico. The Gila drains the Pacific 
slope of this portion of the range, and eventually, 
through a junction with the Colorado, its waters find 
their devious way into the Gulf of California. 
The country between Black Canyon and the North 
Fork was too great to cover by end to end runs from 
each canyon, the method we had been working on, 
so we camped on the divide for a time at a deserted 
ranch called the Meson Place, where there was an 
excellent spring. . 
From this location we were able to work the more 
inaccessible parts of our unfinished block before 
184 
