conjectures. It might be before
morning's light--it might not be before late in the following day, or
even the night after. But that was a consideration that now weighed
lightly. We could hold our aerial fortress for a week--a month--ay, far
longer, and against hundreds. We could not be assailed. With our
rifles to guard the cliff, no storming-party could approach--no forlorn
hope could scale our battlements!

But what of thirst and hunger, you will ask?

Ha! we dreaded not either. Fortune's favours had fallen upon us in
showers. Even on that lone summit, we found the means to assuage the
one and satisfy the other!

In crossing the table-top, we stumbled upon huge _echino-cacti_, that
grew over the ground like ant-hills or gigantic bee-hives. They were
the _mamillaria_ of Quackenboss--dome-shaped, and some of them ten feet
in diameter.

Garey's knife was out in a trice; a portion of the spinous coat of the
largest was stripped off, its top truncated, and a bowl scooped in the
soft succulent mass. In another minute we had assuaged our thirst from
this vegetable fountain of the Desert.

With similar facility were we enabled to gratify the kindred appetite.
As I had conjectured, on viewing them from the plain, the trees of
light-green foliage were "pinons"--the "nut-pine" (_Pinus edulis_), of
which there are several species in Northern Mexico, whose cones contain
seeds edible and nutritious. A few handfuls of these we gathered, and
hungered no more. They would have been better roasted, but at that
moment we were contented to eat them raw.

No wonder, then, that with such a supply for the present, and such hopes
for the future, we no longer dreaded the impotent fury of our foes.

We lay down at the top of the gorge to watch their further movements,
and cover our horses from their attack.

The flash of the lightning showed them still on guard, just as we had
left them. One of each file was mounted, while his companion, on foot,
paced to and fro in the intervals of the cordon. Their measures were
cunningly taken; they were evidently determined we should not steal past
them in the darkness!

The lightning began to abate, and the intervals between the flashes
became longer and longer.

During one of these intervals, we were startled by the sound of
hoof-strokes at some distance off: it was the tramp of horses upon the
hard plain.

There is a difference between the hoof-stroke of a ridden horse and on