“Vernon, sometimes I wonder if all our earthly problems and sorrows are really anything more than mirages,” said Mr. Gilroy, as the wagon bumped over a rut and brought him to a sense of where they were at the moment.
Mr. Vernon laughed. “At least that rut was not a mirage, eh, Joan?”
The sun rose higher, its rays seeming to start mirages in the lilac-tinted haze which enveloped the plains and peaks. Quite often, now, one or another in the party would call out to draw attention to a beautiful lake engirdled by pine groves; to a valley where the flocks or herds pastured; to a barren mountain where the erosions gave view to dark masses of rock and waste. Then, in a flash, all this would vanish, and again the two wagons would be squeaking and rattling up the trail to Acoma.
“No wonder it is called the Enchanted Mesa!” cried Julie. “The whole land here is bewitched.”
“Julie, why don’t you get a picture of one of these mirages?” asked Amy Ward, to whom the west was an unexplored land of possibilities—even its mirages might turn out to be genuine places!
“How can you photograph air and light?” laughed Julie, from her vast experiences of the past season in the Rockies.
“It’s a shame that one can’t get it on a plate,” added Judith.
“It is served on a plate,” remarked Mr. Burt, jokingly. “On the sensitive plate of the vision, and that prints it permanently on our memories.”
The scouts saw the ancient pueblo of Acoma perched up on its towering wall of over four hundred feet in height, long before they actually had arrived. As they came nearer, the tourists saw tiny windows, like the row of portholes on a vessel, lining the top of the rock. Still nearer, the girls could see, here and there, heads sticking out of these windows. The teams were a curiosity to the natives.
The drivers halted their horses and the scouts jumped down, glad to stretch their limbs.