And I think here is as good a place as any to say a word about the modern Southwestern mail stage. It is, of course, motor-driven in this mechanical age, and lacks the peculiar dash and picturesqueness of the 4- and 6-horse vehicles of other days. Nevertheless, much of the charm that enveloped western stage travel then clings to the modern auto-stage. There is the same immersion in glorious, wild scenery; the same thrill of excitement as you spin down mountain grades and around curves with a cañon yawning hungrily beside you; the same exhilaration of association with fellow passengers of types foreign to Broadway or La Salle Street; many times there is the same driver, who, surrendering the ribbon for a steering wheel, has not at all changed his nature. The seat beside him is still the premium place, and if he takes a fancy to you, he will exude information, anecdote and picturesque fiction as freely as a spring its refreshing waters. To travel a bit by stage, when occasion offers, gives a flavor to your Southwestern outing that you will be sorry to have missed. Besides, it sometimes saves you money and time. From Camp Verde to Montezuma’s Castle is a pleasant 3 mile jaunt. Of course you may miss the trail, as I did, and walk six, but if you keep close to Beaver Creek, with a sharp eye ahead, you can detect the ruin from nearly a mile away, snugly ensconced high up in a niche of a pale cliff, overlooking the valley. It is a comparatively small ruin, but there is a charm in its very compactness. And there is the charm, too, of color, the general tone of the buildings being pink set in a framing of white. The base is about 75 feet above the level of the creek that flows at the foot of the cliff—flows, that is, when water happens to be in it, which is not always. The structure itself is perhaps 30 feet high, with substantial squared walls of masonry, and is in 5 stories, access from one to another being either by openings in the ceilings or by modern ladders fastened against the outside walls. How the ancients managed the ascent from the ground, there is none to tell us. An interesting feature is a bowed parapet or battlement (the height of one’s shoulder), which surmounts the fourth story, and from below hides the fifth story rooms which are placed well back against the innermost part of the cliff recess and roofed by its overhang. Be sure you climb to that battlemented upper story (it will be no easy job, for you have to swing yourself up to it through the ceiling of the fourth), and leaning upon the parapet, enjoy the solitude that stretches before you—from the sycamores lining Beaver Creek at the cliff’s foot, across the mesquite-dotted mesa, and the green bottomlands of the Verde to the long purple range of the Black Hills in the dim southwest. If any sound there be, it is the whisper of the wind in the trees far below, or the cooing of the wild doves, which haunt the place. So do bats, and a