st, the savage rolls and precipices of the Sierra
del Carrizo; and on the south, a more distant bordering of hazy mountains,
closing to the southwest, a hundred miles away, in the noble snowy peaks
of Monte San Francisco.

With his field-glass, Thurstane examined one after another of the mesas
and buttes which diversified this enormous depression. At last his
attention settled on an isolated bluff or mound, with a flattened surface
three or four miles in length, the whole mass of which seemed to be solid
and barren rock. On this truncated pyramid he distinguished, or thought he
distinguished, one or more of the pueblos of the Moquis. He could not be
quite sure, because the distance was fifteen miles, and the walls of these
villages are of the same stone with the buttes upon which they stand.

"There is our goal, if I am not mistaken," he said to Coronado. "When we
get there we can rest."

The train pushed onward, slowly descending the terrace, or rather the
succession of terraces. After reaching a more level region, and while
winding between stony hills of a depressing sterility, it came suddenly,
at the bottom of a ravine, upon fresh green turf and thickets of willows,
the environment of a small spring of clear water. There was a halt; all
hands fell to digging a trench across the gully; when it had filled, the
animals were allowed to drink; in an hour more they had closely cropped
all the grass. This was using up time perilously, but it had to be done,
for the beasts were tottering.

Moving again; five miles more traversed; another spring and patch of turf
discovered; a rough ravine through a low sandstone ridge threaded; at last
they were on one of the levels of the valley. Three of the Moqui towns
were now about eight miles distant, and with his glass Thurstane could
distinguish the horizontal lines of building. The trail made straight for
the pueblos, but it was almost impassable to wagons, and progress was very
slow. It was all the slower because of the weakness of the mules, which
throughout all this hair-brained journey had been severely worked, and of
late had been poorly fed.

Presently the travellers turned the point of a naked ridge which projected
laterally into the valley. There they came suddenly upon a wide-spread
sweep of turf, contrasting so brilliantly with the bygone infertilities
that it seemed to them a paradise, and stretching clear on to the bluff of
the pueblos.

There, too, with equal sud