s metal could be found. They must either
have struck the river too high up, or else the El Dorado lay still
farther to the north.

Wet, weary, angry, uttering oaths and expressions of disappointment,
they obeyed the signal to march forward.

We rode up the stream, halting for the night at another place where the
water was accessible to our animals.

Here the hunters again searched for gold, and again found it not.
Mutinous murmurs were now spoken aloud. "The gold country lay below
them; they had no doubt of it. The chief took them by the San Carlos on
purpose to disappoint them. He knew this would prevent delay. He cared
not for them. His own ends were all he wanted to accomplish. They
might go back as poor as they had come, for aught he cared. They would
never have so good a chance again."

Such were their mutterings, embellished with many an oath.

Seguin either heard not or did not heed them. He was one of those
characters who can patiently bear until a proper cue for action may
offer itself. He was fiery by nature, like all Creoles; but time and
trials had tempered him to that calmness and coolness that befitted the
leader of such a band. When roused to action, he became what is styled
in western phraseology a "dangerous man"; and the scalp-hunters knew it.
He heeded not their murmurings.

Long before daybreak, we were once more in our saddles, and moving
onward, still up the Prieto. We had observed fires at a distance during
the night, and we knew that they were at the villages of the "Club"
Apache. We wished to pass their country without being seen; and it was
our intention, when daylight appeared, to "cacher" among the rocks until
the following night.

As dawn advanced, we halted in a concealed ravine, whilst several of us
climbed the hill to reconnoitre. We could see the smoke rising over the
distant villages; but we had passed them in the darkness, and instead of
remaining in cache, we continued on through a wide plain covered with
sage and cactus plants. Mountains towered up on every side of us as we
advanced. They rose directly from the plains, exhibiting the fantastic
shapes which characterise them in those regions. Their stupendous
precipices overlooked the bleak, barren tables frowning upon them in
sublime silence. The plains themselves ran into the very bases of
these, cliffs. Water had surely washed them. These plateaux had once
been the bed of an ancient ocean. I remembered