Southwest-sentinel. [volume] (Silver City, N.M.) 1883-189?, 1895-02-19
IN THE CAyEHOUSES.

I'm i III VA ' LIlOODIflOs I
mo. sonor will not 60 with you;
neither will my people go with you. Il
is not good to go to tho rock houses.
Spirits havo thoir walking place there
spirits OF white men. Tho ghosts Of
our own people are not good, but the
spirits Of white men arc devils.
That was the encouragement I rcceiv-
cd OH setting out for my first summers
chronological work among tho cliff dwell
ings Of New Mexico It was the old
headman Of the pueblo, ziacoto, who
refused in this stately way to lend me
any guides for the trip, and when he
saw was determined to 20 anyhow dis
missed me with tho cheerful warning,
"Whou you are dead, lot not your
mothers spirit reproaoh mer'
tried to lnd out how long tho Cliff
dwellings were supposed to havo been
haunted, but the old fellow was uncom-
municativo. chow can telig" be an
swered. "Spirits live long It is most
likely they hayo been thero many years.
] myself have not seen them, but it Is
said that always OWL spirits dwelt in
tho rock houses, and within year they
have walked. My people have seen them
and died Il is not good to 20 there.
OF course did not care anything for
old Yellow Jackets ghosts. ! had heard
often of tho lost silver mino Of the Te-
wan, and ! supposed that this was ono
of tho ways tho Indians tried of keeping
strangers out Of the mountains and prob
ably had told tho ssme thing so often
they had como to believe it themselves
But wo set ont for tho cavo dwellings
nevertheless with nn outfit Of six,
though mono but the packers knew any-
thing at all about the location Of the
dwellings, and they only by hoarsay.
1t was said that this ses Of cavehOuses
had never been visited by white men,
and by tho time we got to them / was
well inclined to believe it. They were
two days travel up the main canyon Of
the Santa Cruz into the very heart of
tho mountains, and then another full
days crawl mp through q little black
box canyon, narrow as knife blado
and dark as equaw's pocket, with only
a thin bluo line overhead where tho sky
came, and where you could almost SEQ
the stars in daytime.
Once out Of tho canyon, with the roar
Of the stream below still in our cars, we
found ourselves almost IN the middle of
q big saucer shaped mesa, surrounded
ON threo sides with mountains and
dropping OF sheer on tho other TO the
valley of tho Rio Grande. A good sized
mountain torrent, swelled with the
melting Of the SHOWS, ont across tho
plain and dropped into the crack in the
earth out Of which we had just orawled,
and five miles away, cutting diagohnlly
across tho mesa, was thick pine forest,
and rising ont Of tho center of that,
pink in tho light Of the sunset and NIL
tho moro vivid against tho greon Of tho
forest beneath it. rose the long, straight
I wall Of the cliff whero we knew wo
should find tho cave dwellings.
And, suro enough. next morning when
we trotied up through the cool green Of
the pino woods. fresh with the smell of
tho dew still on it, thero were the caves,
hundreds and hundreds Of them, carved
ont OF the soft tufa cliff that on close
inspection was yellow instead OF pink
The top Of tho cliff was 80 OF 100 feet
high, a sheer outcrop Of Volcanic ash
and pumico But tho straight wall IN
which tho caves wero cut was only the
upper 40 or 90 feet Of IL, the base being
buried in q broken mass Of talus, slop-
ing down at an anglo Of 40 degrees to
the river that swept down along the
foot Of tho slope like a mill race.
Wo put in q good days work at the
rock houses. which did not look as though
they had ever been touched by a white
man. Casey ran q bnso line for his sur
veg and nearly dropped his rodman ol
the olid doing il for It was terribly
steep in places
BY night there had come up q regu-
lar mountain thunderstorm, and for oui
own convenience wo had moved into one
Of tho rock houses md stabbed tho mules
In another. lt was rs comfortable Z
camp as one conld want ia q storm, nS
possibility Of tho rain getting to as
while, Pcrched as we were, high up the
cliff, tho prospect out over the Lowell tol
of the great pine forest was magnificent
the black and gray masses Of cloudI
rolling down over tho green Of thl
woods. and tho river far down below n
plunging over tho rocks ana spoutini
up in white spray around tho bend O
the clin.
Tho wind howled, and tho rain cams
down straight aud thick as telegraph
wire, breaking into mist where IL hi
tho rocks and pitting the swift movin,
current Of the midslreain. Tho thunde
kept On booming like mountain batter
les in the hills behind US and rollcl
aud ratified liko the crash Of avalanche
down the slope. Night had fallen. anl
the only light outside was tho light
ming that lit up the top Of the fores
and tho mountains beyond with a pale
slaty light and turned tho round door
way Of tho cave into the mouth Of
great camera obscura
But we woro dry and comfortable
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