At a short distance across the narrow Rito we could see a little stone ranch house surrounded by huge pine trees and box-elders. A woman was standing on the porch probably wondering if we were to be guests for the night at the famous “Ten Elder Ranch.” But my father and I were fishing for mountain trout, and, if I remember correctly, it was he who caught the limit because he was the fisherman, not I. I might have been included among those unschooled people who had in their blood simply the desire for “pioneering” and “roughing-it,” but who understood little about what they saw. This excursion of ours took place when roads in New Mexico were almost nil. A buckboard would have been better than an automobile with high pressure tires which blew out about twice a day. We broke an axle on the way home and had to spend the night on La Bajada Mesa between the Rio Grande and the highway in what was locally known as “Old Man Pankey’s Pastures.” The Valley of the Frijoles impressed me, then a little boy, and, I well remember the hundreds of smoke-blackened caves hewn out of the soft cliffs by Indians sometime in the dim past. But I knew not the significance of these caves. I knew nothing of the story of how prehistoric Indians lived four hundred years ago. They were merely blackened holes to me occupied by a people about whom I knew little. I remember the ruins of the big community house. It was located across the little river from the stone ranch house. I thought it foolish for Indians to build houses out in the sun when there were so many shade trees close to the Rito. I now believe that this first visit of my childhood created within me the desire to solve for myself the questions then arising in my mind concerning the Canyon. Since that time hundreds of famous personages have passed this way: artists, archæologists, doctors, botanists, psychologists, statesmen, preachers, governors, engineers, students and romancers, each finding satisfaction in his own particular line of interest.