After the formalities of our meeting were over the stranger stood for a few moments with his chin resting on his breast. He was evidently thinking over some serious subject. His head was bare, his fur cap being in his hands, and his hands locked behind his back. A mass of light colored hair fell over his forehead and shoulders. Presently he looked at us again, with that same grave smile on his face, and said that if we would consent to be blindfolded and trust ourselves implicitly to his care, he would be glad to take us to his home and would feel honored if we should choose to visit him. “You can proceed no further on this trail for it ends here, and not even a goat can go beyond the rock on which we stand, therefore we must retrace our steps a few hundred yards,” he explained, as he apologized for his strange proposition. He securely bandaged our eyes with our own handkerchiefs, and after turning us around until I at least had lost all sense of direction, he placed thongs in our hands, and then we discovered that we were to be led by some sort of animals, presumably wolves. Whatever else they were, they proved to be careful and sagacious leaders. After a short distance of rough climbing where we constantly needed the personal help of our mysterious host, we began to descend and soon our feet told us that we were traveling on a comparatively smooth though steep trail. Now and again our guide would speak to warn us of stones or other obstructions in our path, but, with the exception of these necessary words of caution and brief words expressing approval or reproof to the animals, we made the journey in silence and in due time reached the bottom, and our feet told us that we were walking on a level shale-covered path. At this point the creatures leading us were dismissed and we could hear them scrambling back over the trail. We heard the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle and all the multiplicity of noises so familiar on a well-stocked farm, and we could easily detect the different odors as familiar and characteristic as the noises. We enjoyed to its fullest extent the novelty of the homely sensations aroused by the smell of new-mown hay and the familiar medley of sounds peculiar to the farm. In due time we found ourselves at the foot of a couple of wooden steps, which we ascended, and, crossing a broad veranda, entered a doorway. Here we stood awaiting further commands in utter ignorance of our surroundings. Of course, we surmised we were in the ranch house which we saw from the table rock, but this was only a surmise. “Gentlemen,” said the strange old man, “you are welcome to my home, and allow me to add that you are the only white men who have ever crossed the threshold of this house.” As he ceased speaking he removed the bandages from our eyes. CHAPTER XVIII