Sweeny screamed like a delighted child.  “Oh! an’ that’s just like ould Oirland.  Oh, luk at the turrf!  D’ye iver see the loikes o’that, now?  The blessed turrf!  Here ye be, right in the divil’s own garden.  Liftinant, if ye’ll let me build a fort here, I’ll garrison it.  I’ll stay here me whole term of sarvice.”

“Halt,” said Thurstane.  “We’ll eat, refill canteens, and inspect arms.  If this is Diamond Canon, and I think there is no doubt of it, we may expect to find Indians soon.”

“I’ll fight ’em,” declared Sweeny.  “An’ if they’ve got anythin’ betther nor dried grizzly, I’ll have it.”

“Wait for orders,” cautioned Thurstane.  “No firing without orders.”

After cleaning their guns and chewing their tough and stale rations, they resumed their march, leaving the rivulet and following the canon, which led toward the southwest.  As they were now regaining the level of the plateau, their advance was a constant and difficult ascent, sometimes struggling through labyrinths of detached rocks, and sometimes climbing steep shelves which had once been the leaping-places of cataracts.  The sides of the chasm were two thousand feet high, and it was entered by branch ravines of equal grandeur.

The sun had set for them, although he was still high above the horizon of upper earth, when Thurstane halted and whispered, “Wigwams!”

Perched among the rocks, some under projecting strata and others in shadowy niches between huge buttresses, they discovered at first three or four, then a dozen, and finally twenty wretched cabins.  They scarcely saw before they were seen; a hideous old squaw dropped a bundle of fuel and ran off screeching; in a moment the whole den was in an uproar.  Startling yells burst from lofty nooks in the mountain flanks, and scarecrow figures dodged from ambush to ambush of the sombre gully.  It was as if they had invaded the haunts of the brownies.

The Hualpais, a species of Digger Indians, dwarfish, miserable, and degraded, living mostly on roots, lizards, and the like, were nevertheless conscious of scalps to save.  In five minutes from the discovery of the strangers they had formed a straggling line of battle, squatting along a ledge which crossed the canon.  There were not twenty warriors, and they were no doubt wretchedly armed, but their position was formidable.

Sweeny, looking like an angry rat, his nose twitching and eyes sparkling with rage, offered to storm the rampart alone, shouting, “Oh, the nasty, lousy nagurs!  Let ’em get out of our way.”

“Guess we’d better talk to the cusses,” observed Glover.  “Tain’t the handiest place I ever see for fightin’; an’ I don’t keer ‘bout havin’ my ears ‘n’ nose bored any more at present.”

“Stay where you are,” said Thurstane.  “I’ll go forward and parley with them.”

CHAPTER XXX.

Thurstane had no great difficulty in making a sort of let-me-alone-and-I’ll-let-you-alone treaty with the embattled Hualpais.