ailed the sight with joyful
exclamations--as they believed that it would lead them to a crossing.
They hesitated not, but riding boldly into it, followed it downward. As
they had anticipated, it wound down to the bottom of the barranca, and
passed up to the prairie on the opposite side, where they soon arrived
in safety.

This, however, was no termination to their sufferings, which had now
grown more acute than ever. The atmosphere felt like an oven; and the
light dust, kicked up by their horses' hoofs, enveloped them in a
choking cloud, so that at times they could not see the butte for which
they were making. It was of no use halting again. To halt was certain
death--and they struggled on with fast-waning strength, scarcely able to
retain their seats or speak to one another. Thirst had almost deprived
them of the power of speech!

It was near sunset, when the travellers, faint, choking, panting for
breath, bent down in their saddles, their horses dragging along under
them like loaded bees, approached the foot of the eminence. Their eyes
were thrown forward in eager glances--glances in which hope and despair
were strangely blended.

The grey, rocky bluff, that fronted them, looked parched and forbidding.
It seemed to frown inhospitably upon them as they drew near.

"O brothers! should there be no water!"

This exclamation was hardly uttered, when the mule Jeanette, hitherto
lagging behind, sprang forward in a gallop, hinnying loudly as she ran.
Jeanette, as we have said, was an old prairie traveller, and could scent
water as far as a wolf could have done her own carcass. The other
animals, seeing her act in this manner, rushed after; and the next
moment the little cavalcade passed round a point of rocks, where a green
sward gladdened the eyes of all. They saw grass and willows, among
whose leaves gurgled the crystal waters of a prairie spring; and in a
few seconds' time, both horses and riders were quenching their thirst in
its cool current.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE PRONG-HORNS.

The "butte" was one of those singular formations to be met with in the
Great American Desert. It was not a mountain nor yet a hill. Its shape
was different from either. It was more like a vast mass of rocky earth,
raised above the prairie, perpendicular on all sides, and having a flat
level surface upon its top. It was, in fact, one of those hills which
in the language of Spanish America, are termed "mesas," or tables