“I hope we shan’t camp here,” said Perry with a shiver.
“Not an attractive place, but I daresay Diego has some spot marked out in his eye, for he has evidently been along here a good many times before.”
Ten minutes later, as the snowy peaks which came into view began to grow of a bright orange in the western sunshine, one of the mules in front uttered a whinnying squeal, and the rest pricked up their ears and increased their pace.
“Steady there! Wo-ho!” shouted John Manning. “Hadn’t we better sound a halt, sir, or some of ’em ’ll be over the side of the path.”
“I think we may trust them; they smell grass or something ahead, and know it is their halting-place.”
“But look at that brown ’un, sir; he’s walking right out from under his load.”
A few hitches, though, and a tightening of the hide ropes, kept the loosened pack in its place; and soon after, to Perry’s great delight, the gorge opened out into a bright green valley, where, a snug, well-sheltered nook being selected, the mules were once more unloaded, and a fire lit. Then, thanks to John Manning’s campaigning cleverness, before the light on the mountain tops quite died out, they were seated at a comfortable meal, with a good fire crackling and burning between them and the Indians, wood for once in a way being fairly plentiful, there being a little forest of dense scrubby trees low down by the stream which coursed through the bottom of the valley.
“Not quite such a savage-looking place, Master Perry,” said John Manning, when the colonel had taken his gun and gone for a final look round before they retired to their blankets on the hard ground.
“Savage! Why, it’s beautiful,” cried Perry, who had been watching the colours die out on one snowy peak.
“Yes, sir, I suppose it is,” said the man, shaking his head; “but we didn’t take all the trouble to see things look beautiful. We can do that at home. What I’m thinking is that the place don’t look healthy.”