214 THE STORY OF A BIRD LOVER 



dow seats, book-cases, dressing tables, and bed- 

 steads that formed our furniture. 



The rooms were hung with cheap calicoes of 

 pretty design. Bear and deer skins, Mexican ser- 

 apes, and Navajo blankets made effective rugs. 

 When in all its completeness the cottage appeared 

 for the first time to the astonished gaze of Jesus 

 ■ Maria Castro, our Mexican neighbor, he exclaimed 

 in Spanish, " Behold the Little Palace of Mon- 

 tezuma ! " This romantic name it bore ever after. 



Pepper Sauce Gulch in the Old Hat District, 

 on the north side of the Santa Catalina Moun- 

 tains, winds down to the valley of the San Pedro 

 River. The upper reaches of the canon run 

 between abrupt hills, which tower on either side 

 for about a thousand feet. The sides of these hills 

 are grassy, and the timber consists almost entirely 

 of a kind of live oak. 



Close to the house good water was abundant 

 in the bed of the canon, but for our use was piped 

 from a spring high in the mountains. The site 

 of the " Little Palace " was on the side of a hill 

 some hundred feet above the bottom of the 

 gulch, the hills being here so steep that it was 

 necessary to cut out a shelf for the main part of 

 the floor. The beams, which projected far be- 

 yond the excavations, were supported by uprights 

 rising from the ground below; it was in this 

 respect like a Swiss chalet. On the side of 



