El Sol, meanwhile, had been busy. Several wolves were killed and skinned, and the meat was packed in their skins. The gourds were filled, our captive was tied on a mule, and we stood waiting the return of the trappers.
Seguin had resolved to leave two men at the spring as videttes. They were to keep their horses by the rocks, and supply them with the mule-bucket, so as to make no fresh tracks at the water. One was to remain constantly on an eminence, and watch the prairie with the glass. They could thus descry the returning Navajoes in time to escape unobserved themselves along the foot of the mountain. They were then to halt at a place ten miles to the north, where they could still have a view of the plain. There they were to remain until they had ascertained what direction the Indians should take after leaving the spring, when they were to hurry forward and join the band with their tidings.
All these arrangements having been completed as Rube and Garey came up, we mounted our horses and rode by a circuitous route for the mountain foot. When close in, we found the path strewed with loose cut-rock, upon which the hoofs of our animals left no track. Over this we rode forward, heading to the north, and keeping in a line nearly parallel to the “war-trail.”
Chapter Thirty One.
A Buffalo “Surround.”
A march of twenty miles brought us to the place where we expected to be joined by the band. We found a small stream heading in the Pinon Range, and running westward to the San Pedro. It was fringed with cotton-trees and willows, and with grass in abundance for our horses. Here we encamped, kindled a fire in the thicket, cooked our wolf-mutton, ate it, and went to sleep.
The band came up in the morning, having travelled all night. Their provisions were spent as well as ours, and instead of resting our wearied animals, we pushed on through a pass in the sierra in hopes of finding game on the other side.
About noon we debouched through the mountain pass into a country of openings—small prairies, bounded by jungly forests, and interspersed with timber islands. These prairies were covered with tall grass, and buffalo signs appeared as we rode into them. We saw their “roads,” “chips,” and “wallows.”