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 suddenness, they came upon peril.  Just beyond the nose of the sandstone promontory there was a bivouac of half naked, dark-skinned horsemen, recognizable at a glance as Apaches.  It was undoubtedly the band of Delgadito.

The camp was half a mile distant.  The Indians, evidently surprised at the appearance of the train, were immediately in commotion.  There was a rapid mounting, and in five minutes they were all on horseback, curveting in circles, and brandishing their lances, but without advancing.

“Manga Colorada hasn’t reached here yet,” observed Thurstane.

“That’s so,” assented Texas Smith.  “They hain’t heerd from the cuss, or they’d a bushwhacked us somewhar.  Seein’ he dasn’t follow our trail, he had to make a big turn to git here.  But he’ll be droppin’ along, an’ then we’ll hev a fight.  I reckon we’ll hev one any way.  Them cusses ain’t friendly.  If they was, they’d a piled in helter-skelter to hev a talk an’ ask fur whiskey.”