On December 31st we moved up a steep zigzag trail cut out by us, and then went north and east through broken foot-hills.  We got into a series of cordon mesas, but the breaks between them were not at all difficult to pass.  On the mountain sides grew oaks and, higher up, pines.

The country was wild and rugged.  Everywhere we encountered fallen rocks, and there was a scarcity of water.  It was a kind of comfort to see now and then some trincheras in these desolate regions.  At four o’clock we camped on a steep place amidst poor grass, and only a trickling of water in the bed of a little rill.

Here, at last, the men whom I had sent to Nacori for provisions overtook us, bringing eighteen dollars’ worth of panoche, and two and a quarter fanegas of pinole.  Measuring by fanegas was then still in vogue in Mexico; a fanega equals about sixty-four kilograms.

This, the messengers stated, was all that the women would grind for us.  Twenty of them had been set to work to fill our order, and when they had laboured until their hands were tired, they declared they would grind no more; and if the caballeros in the mountains wanted further quantities, they should come and make mills of themselves.  From this we judged that their tempers had risen in proportion to the heaps of pinole they were producing, and that they did not bless the day when we had come into their peaceful valley, since it meant so much hard work for them.

Though we were now provisioned for some time to come, I was anxiously looking forward to the day when we should reach the eastern side of the sierra.  The animals were rapidly giving out, and it was the opinion of the packers that they could not last longer than a week; but what little corn we could spare for them each day worked wonders, and in this way we enabled them to carry us through.

The most noticeable among the plants in the valleys was the madrona or strawberry tree (Ardutus Texana) growing singly here and there.  Its beautiful stem and branches, ash-grey and blood-red, are oddly twisted from the root to the top.  Now and then, in this world of pine trees, we came upon patches of grama grass.  We also observed pinon trees, a variety of pine with edible seeds.

Apache monuments were plentiful in this part of the sierra, and after four days of travel, on January 5, 1891, we arrived at an old Apache camping place, called by the Mexicans “Rancheria de los Apaches.”  It was a sheltered place, and we decided to stop again and rest, as now we could not be very far from the Mormon colonies in the eastern part of the sierra.  We had, on the day before, heard a shot, which had not been fired by anyone of our party, and we had met some short-horn cattle that must have belonged to some settlers.