RED MESA [Illustration: NILTCI GOT ONE GLIMPSE OF VASQUEZ, STANDING WITH HIS RIFLE POISED.] RED MESA A TALE OF THE SOUTHWEST BY WARREN H. MILLER AUTHOR OF “THE BLACK PANTHER OF THE NAVAHO,” “THE RING-NECKED GRIZZLY,” ETC. [Illustration] D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK :: 1923 :: LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. CAÑON HONANKI 1 II. THE LURE OF THE MINE 25 III. VASQUEZ 47 IV. PINACATE 70 V. RED MESA 95 VI. THE SOUL OF THE INDIAN 119 VII. BLAZE 143 VIII. HANO 166 IX. THE SUN DANCE 187 X. THE DEFENSE OF RED MESA 208 XI. GOLD VERSUS NATURE 226 XII. OUT OF THE DESERT 244 RED MESA CHAPTER I CAÑON HONANKI Above a timbered valley in the southwest rises a towering wall of gorgeous cliffs such as only Arizona can produce. Their rock pinnacles are banded with color--red strata, ochre, blue, green, and white--all in wavy horizontal lines like layer cake. These long walls were scoured clean and smooth long ago by prehistoric water action. They were broken with deep fissures--fissures that now cleave the cliff from top to bottom--“chimneys” that mean seven hundred feet of sheer ascent to him who would dare scale these heights. Two riders sat gazing up, searching this cliff face, while an Airedale dog of huge and leonine aspect prowled about in the creek bottom near them, investigating this and that with snuffing nose. “That cliff dwelling is up here somewhere, according to Doctor Fewkes’ map, John,” said the smaller and rangier of the pair, his puckered-up black eyes never leaving off their scrutiny of the cliff face. “Think we’ll find her?” The older man, a great, bony and leathery cowman, who might have hailed from anywhere in the west from Montana to Arizona, took off his sombrero and mopped a sweaty brow with the loose end of his bandanna. “Search me!” he grinned. “I’m a cowman, not no prophet--as the greenhorn axman said when the lumber boss as’t him which way his tree was goin’ to fall.” He looked lugubriously up at the cliff, shaking his head solemnly. “It’d take a horned toad with suckers on his feet to bust her, Siddy son.” The youth tugged determinedly at the fine fuzz of black mustache that adorned his upper lip. “Honanki Ruins or bust--that’s our motto, John!” he retorted, his black eyes twinkling merrily at the reluctant cowman. “Here’s Fewkes’ map, with the ruins marked ‘Inaccessible’ on it, and, by jerry, _we’re_ here, if the map’s right. They’re somewhere above us, and it’s up to us to bust ’em.”