the country which they had traversed was unrolled to their vision. In
the foreground stretched declining tablelands, intersected by numberless
ravines, and beyond these a lofty line of bluffs marked the edge of the
Great Canon of the Colorado. Through one wide gap in these heights came a
vision of endless plateaux, their terraces towering one above another
until they were thousands of feet in the air, the horizontal azure bands
extending hundreds of miles northward, until the deep blue faded into a
lighter blue, and that into the sapphire of the heavens.

"It looks a darned sight finer than it is," observed Glover.

"Bedad, ye may say that," added Sweeny. "It's a big hippycrit av a
counthry. Ye'd think, to luk at it, ye could ate it wid a spoon."

Now came a rolling region, covered with blue grass and dotted with groves
of cedars, the earth generally hard and smooth and the marching easy.
Striking southward, they reached a point where the plateau culminated in a
low ridge, and saw before them a long gentle slope of ten miles, then a
system of rounded hills, and then mountains.

"Halt here," said Thurstane. "We must study our topography and fix on our
line of march."

"You'll hev to figger it," replied Glover. "I don't know nothin' in this
part o' the world."

"Ye ain't called on to know," put in Sweeny. "The liftinant'll tell ye."

"I think," hesitated Thurstane, "that we are about fifty miles north of
Cactus Pass, where we want to strike the trail."

"And I'm putty nigh played out," groaned Glover.

"Och! _you_ howld up yer crazy head," exhorted Sweeny. "It'll do ye iver
so much good."

"It's easy talkin'," sighed the jaded and rheumatic skipper.

"It's as aisy talkin' right as talkin' wrong," retorted Sweeny. "Ye've no
call to grunt the curritch out av yer betthers. Wait till the liftinant
says die."

Thurstane was studying the landscape. Which of those ranges was the
Cerbat, which the Aztec, and which the Pinaleva? He knew that, after
leaving Cactus Pass, the overland trail turns southward and runs toward
the mouth of the Gila, crossing the Colorado hundreds of miles away. To
the west of the pass, therefore, he must not strike, under peril of
starving amid untracked plains and ranges. On the whole, it seemed
probable that the snow-capped line of summits directly ahead of him was
the Cerbat range, and that he must follow it southward along the base of
its eastern slope.

"We will move on," he said. "Mr