The worst insult is that which comes from one’s own brother. As we sat munching our mock luncheon, while the rain beat against our faces, ran down our backs, flooded our tonneau, and washed the bottom out of the ravine we were trying to climb, we were greeted by a young American surveyor on horse-back and almost hidden within the ample folds of a rubber poncho. We explained ourselves and he explained himself, and then started to explain the Santa Fe mountains. He was quite certain that we could never reach the top of the ridge; in fact, he suggested that we would be several kinds of profane fools to try. His conversational tone implied that he thought we were, anyway. His sneering demeanor rankled. We were glad when he and his prophecy were gone, and glad to meet a couple of black laborers without opinions but with good muscles. We impressed them into service. They helped us dig, scrape, and carry stones. We were all fighting mad, and we all worked. Foot by foot, we made a path for the car up the mountain and the car climbed the mountain. Gradually, we won the summit of the Santa Fe ridge. There was just one house in sight, a shack whose rough, slabbed walls were not tight enough to keep out the deluge. It was a haven of refuge to us, and the poor supper we ate that night on the damp, storm-darkened mountain peak was to us a delectable banquet. The night was cold. We were roughly bedded on benches and in hammocks. The farmer, like many others who have homes along isolated trails, kept a small supply of goods that might be purchased by wayfarers. We bought four cotton blankets. All through the long, restless hours, a thin-clad little black baby wailed most dismally with the cold. That was a dreary night for all of us. We knew that we had done a lot, but, measured on the map, that lot meant exactly fourteen miles. We wondered what we would do the next day. We wondered where we would have been, had we not followed the advice given us at Santa Clara, but had gone around the foot of the Santa Fes instead of over their worst passes. This, our host of the night said, we should have done, as the correct route from Santa Clara to Placetas lay in almost the opposite direction to the way we had taken. Santa Clara to Camp Santa Fe—fourteen miles. [Illustration: “_We had to ford ... a fast flowing torrent set down in a gorge ... which had no path leading to a crossing of any kind._” SEE PAGE 84.] [Illustration] CHAPTER VII _One who journeying_ _Along a way he knows not, having crossed_ _A place of drear extent, before him sees_ _A river rushing swiftly toward the deep,_ _And all its tossing current white with foam._ —Iliad. [Illustration]