Navajo, and the Comanche, the conquered of Cortez and his conquerors,
will yet drive the descendants of those very conquerors from the soil of
Mexico. Look at Sonora and Chihuahua, half-depopulated! Look at New
Mexico; its citizens living by suffrance: living, as it were, to till
the land and feed the flocks for the support of their own enemies, who
levy their blackmail by the year! But, come; the sun tells us we must
on. Come!

"Mount! we can go through," continued he. "There has been no rain
lately, and the water is low, otherwise we should have fifteen miles of
a ride over the mountain yonder. Keep close to the rocks! Follow me!"

And with this admonition he entered the canon, followed by myself, Gode,
and the doctor.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE SCALP-HUNTERS.

It was still early in the evening when we reached the camp--the camp of
the scalp-hunters. Our arrival was scarcely noticed. A single glance
at us, as we rode in amongst the men was all the recognition we
received. No one rose from his seat or ceased his occupation. We were
left to unsaddle our horses and dispose of them as best we might.

I was wearied with the ride, having been so long unused to the saddle.
I threw my blanket on the ground, and sat down, resting my back against
the stump of a tree. I could have slept, but the strangeness of
everything around me excited my imagination, and, with feelings of
curiosity, I looked and listened.

I should call the pencil to my aid to give you an idea of the scene, and
that would but faintly illustrate it. A wilder and more picturesque
_coup-d'oeil_ never impressed human vision. It reminded me of pictures
I had seen representing the bivouacs of brigands under the dark pines of
the Abruzzi.

I paint from a recollection that looks back over many years of
adventurous life. I can give only the more salient points of the
picture. The _petite detail_ is forgotten, although at that time the
minutest objects were things new and strange to my eye, and each of them
for a while fixed my attention. I afterwards grew familiar with them;
and hence they are now in my memory, as a multitude of other things,
indistinct from their very distinctness.

The camp was in a bend of the Del Norte, in a glade surrounded by tall
cotton-woods, whose smooth trunks rose vertically out of a thick
underwood of palmettoes and Spanish bayonet. A few tattered tents stood
in the open ground; and there were skin lodges af