und us, and the water rose higher and higher. This was exactly what
we wished for; and we had the satisfaction of seeing the flood increase
to such a height that, as Rube assured us, it could not subside for
hours. It was then resolved that we should continue our journey.

It was near midnight when we drew our pickets and rode off. The rain
had partially blinded the trail made by El Sol and his party, but the
men who now followed it were not much used to guide-posts, and Rube,
acting as leader, lifted it at a trot. At intervals the flashes of
lightning showed the mule tracks in the mud, and the white peak that
beckoned us in the distance.

We travelled all night. An hour after sunrise we overtook the atajo,
near the base of the snow mountain. We halted in the mountain pass;
and, after a short while spent in cooking and eating breakfast,
continued our journey across the sierra. The road led through a dry
ravine, into an open plain that stretched east and south beyond the
reach of our vision. It was a desert.

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I will not detail the events that occurred to us in the passage of that
terrible jornada. They were similar to those we experienced in the
deserts to the west. We suffered from thirst, making one stretch of
sixty miles without water. We passed over sage-covered plains, without
a living object to break the death-like monotony that extended around
us. We cooked our meals over the blaze of the artemisia. But our
provisions gave out; and the pack mules, one by one, fell under the
knives of the hungry hunters. By night we camped without fires; we
dared not kindle them; for though, as yet, no pursuers had appeared, we
knew they must be on our trail. We had travelled with such speed that
they had not been able to come up with us.

For three days we headed towards the south-east. On the evening of the
third we descried the Mimbres Mountains towering up on the eastern
border of the desert. The peaks of these were well known to the
hunters, and became our guides as we journeyed on.

We approached the Mimbres in a diagonal direction, as it was our purpose
to pass through the sierra by the route of the old mine, once the
prosperous property of our chief. To him every feature of the landscape
was a familiar object. I observed that his spirits rose as we proceeded
onward.

At sundown we reached the head of the Barranca del Oro, a v