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Show 18 BY PATH AND TKAIL. streams and rivers, and through a land bristling with cacti and thorny yucca. Nor will this extraordinary feat seem incredible to readers familiar with Prescott's History of Mexico. It is recorded by the historian that two days after the land ing of the Spaniards on the eastern coast of Mexico, pic torial drawings of the strangers, of their ships, horses, mail and weapons were delivered into the hands of Mon-tezuma by express runners, who covered the distance from Vera Cruz to the Aztec capital 263 miles in thirty- six hours. In that time they ascended from the ocean 8,000 feet, traversing a land broken with depres sions and ravines and sown with innumerable hills, bar rancas and aroyos. As we advanced, the trail grew ever steeper, ever rougher, ever more confused by the inexplicable wind ings and protruding elbows that pushed out from the granite walls as if to challenge our advance. How the ancient, angry waters must have roared through these narrow passages when the torrential rains were abroad on these high peaks, and the swollen streams, leaping from ledge to level, swelled the rushing flood! Above our heads there rose three thousand feet of porphyritic rock, but we had no consciousness of it, no foreboding of danger, no fear, no chill. We were now in a gorge of the Bacatete mountains, where, a year ago, the Yaquis ambushed and slaughtered the Meza party, leaving their mangled bodies in this narrow gorge between Ortiz and La Dura. The report of the massacre was brought to Ortiz by an Indian ex press runner, who passed through the defile at break of day and identified the bodies. Senor Pedro Meza, a wealthy mine owner and one of the most prominent men |