"Deafy he tells the sheriff he's not a goin' clean through to town that day, but is a-goin' to camp at the Jacob's Well, a place about half way down, on the edge of the pines, where he's arranged to meet up with the camp rustler of one of his bands of sheep grazin' in that section. Ever been at that there Jacob's Well?" And the old man looked at me inquiringly. I nodded affirmatively. The Jacob's Well was located in the center of a very large level mass of sandstone covering perhaps three or four acres, with a dense thicket of cedar and piñon trees all about it. It was a fairly round hole about five feet wide and perhaps ten deep, bored down into the sandstone formation either by human agency or some peculiar action of nature. The lay of the rocks all about it was such as to form a regular watershed, so that the natural drainage from the rain and snow kept it nearly filled almost all the year round. Just what made this well was a moot question in the country. A scientific investigator promptly put it down to the action of hard flint rocks lying in a small depression and rolled about by the wind until they dug a little basin in the rock, then the water collecting in it continued the attrition until, finally, after what may have been ages, the well was the result. My private opinion was that it was the work of prehistoric or even modern Indians who, wishing to secure a supply of water at this particular point, possibly for hunting purposes, formed the hole by fire. A large fire was built upon the rock, then when at a white heat water was thrown upon it, causing the stone to flake and crack so it could easily be removed. This was a slow process, of course, but having myself once seen a party of Apache squaws by the same primitive means remove over half of a huge boulder that lay directly in the line of an irrigating ditch they were digging, and which they otherwise could not get around, I am convinced the scientific person missed the true methods employed to excavate the hole. However, without regard to its origin, the well was a fine camping place, for water was scarce in that region and there was always good grass for the horses near it. The old man rambled on. "Deafy he gits a poor start next mornin' 'count of a pack mule what insisted on buckin' the pack off a couple of times and scatterin' the load rather promisc'ous-like over the landscape, an' by the time they reached the well it was plumb dark. They unsaddles and hobbles their hosses out, and then Deafy he sets to work buildin' a fire, tellin' the kid to take his saddle rope and the coffee pot and git some water. The kid he's never been there afore, but Deafy tells him the well's only about a hundred feet from where they unpacked, so he moseys out into the dark lookin' for the well, his rope in one hand, the camp coffee pot in 'tother, the idee bein' to let the pot down into the well with the rope.