y followed the river thus
far, and our people may have turned inland. There is so much sand on the
banks that the rain destroys all foot-marks."

Zashue looked up; a thought had struck him like a flash.

"Have you seen the ravine below here?" He pointed to the south. "How
would it do for us to look there? The ravine comes from the river."

"You are right," Hayoue assented, rising and moving slowly on. The
strong young man was tired, almost exhausted from endless roaming,
searching, spying, and from hunger and thirst combined. Zashue took a
more southeasterly direction, so that both struck the brink of the
ravine at some distance apart.

From the brink they looked down into a deep cleft, at the bottom of
which the little Rio de Santa Fe winds its course toward the Rio Grande.
This cleft is the gorge which to-day is called Canon de las Bocas. South
of it the plateaus continue with barren undulations and whitish hills.
They rise gradually to the base of a sombre mountain cluster, the bulk
of which was wrapped in clouds, as well as the huge mass of the Sandia
chain to its right. Still farther to the right the Rio Grande valley
opened. Sand-whirls chased along that valley to meet a shower which was
sending rain-streaks into it. A cloud had meanwhile gathered over the
heads of the wanderers, thunder reverberated, and the raindrops began to
fall. The men paid no attention; they gazed down at the little torrent
beneath, at the groups of poplar-trees on its banks, and at the
scattered patches of open ground along its course. Their desire was to
descend into the gorge to search for traces of those whom they longed
for.

The descent was impracticable from where they had stopped. A rim of
vertical cliffs of lava and trap formed the upper border of the cleft.
Suddenly Hayoue exclaimed,--

"Umo, they are not down here, or we should see them from above. Let us
go farther, where there are no rocks, and where the stream enters the
gorge. If our people have come through here we must find their tracks at
the outlet."

"It is well," replied Zashue.

The shower drizzled out; its main force was spent on the southern
plateaus, and cool gusts of wind blew across to the north side. When the
brothers had clambered down the rugged slope covered with scattered
lava-blocks to the sandy nook where now stands the hamlet of the
"Ciene-quilla," clouds had again lifted over Hashyuko, and on the slope
of the high Sierra the bluish cloudlet swam