For all this the animals of the travellers seemed to journey along it without difficulty, only the American horse showing signs of awkwardness. All the others went as if they had trodden it before.
For several hours they kept on through this series of canons and gorges—here and there crossing a transverse ridge that, cutting off a bend, shortened the distance.
Just before sunset the party came to a halt; not in the defile itself, but in one of still more rugged aspect, that led laterally into the side of the mountain. In this there was no trace or sign of travel—no appearance of its having been entered by man or animal.
Yet the horse ridden by Roblez, and the pack-mules coming after, entered with as free a step as if going into a well-known enclosure. True, the chief of the party, mounted on the Kentucky steed, had gone in before them; though this scarce accounted for their confidence.
Up this unknown gorge they rode until they had reached its end. There was no outlet, for it was a cul-de-sac—a natural court—such as are often found among the amygdaloidal mountains of Mexico.
At its extremity, where it narrowed to a width of about fifty feet, lay a huge boulder of granite that appeared to block up the path; though there was a clear space between it and the cliff rising vertically behind it.
The obstruction was only apparent, and did not cause the leading savage of the party to make even a temporary stop. At one side there was an opening large enough to admit the passage of a horse; and into this he rode, Roblez following, and also the mules in a string, one after the other.
Behind the boulder was an open space of a few square yards, of extent sufficient to allow room for turning a horse. The savage chief wheeled his steed, and headed him direct for the cliff; not with the design of dashing his brains against the rock, but to force him into a cavern, whose entrance showed its disc in the façade of the precipice, dark and dismal as the door of an Inquisitorial prison.
The horse snorted, and shied back; but the ponderous Mexican spur, with its long sharp rowel-points, soon drove him in; whither he was followed by the mustang of Roblez and the mules—the latter going in as unconcernedly as if entering a stable whose stalls were familiar to them.