The Barranca.
We staked our horses upon the open plain, and, returning to the thicket, cut down wood and kindled fires. We felt secure. Our pursuers, even had they escaped back to the valley, could not now reach us, except by turning the mountains or waiting for the falling of the flood.
We knew that that would be as sudden as its rise, should the rain cease; but the storm still raged with unabated fury.
We could soon overtake the atajo; but we determined to remain for some time at the cañon, until men and horses had refreshed themselves by eating. Both were in need of food, as the hurried events of the preceding days had given no opportunity for a regular bivouac.
The fires were soon blazing under shelter of the overhanging rocks; and the dried meat was broiled for our suppers, and eaten with sufficient relish. Supper ended, we sat, with smoking garments, around the red embers. Several of the men had received wounds. These were rudely dressed by their comrades, the doctor having gone forward with the atajo.
We remained for several hours by the cañon. The tempest still played around us, and the water rose higher and higher. This was exactly what we wished for; and we had the satisfaction of seeing the flood increase to such a height that, as Rube assured us, it could not subside for hours. It was then resolved that we should continue our journey.
It was near midnight when we drew our pickets and rode off. The rain had partially blinded the trail made by El Sol and his party, but the men who now followed it were not much used to guide-posts, and Rube, acting as leader, lifted it at a trot. At intervals the flashes of lightning showed the mule tracks in the mud, and the white peak that beckoned us in the distance.
We travelled all night. An hour after sunrise we overtook the atajo, near the base of the snow mountain. We halted in the mountain pass; and, after a short while spent in cooking and eating breakfast, continued our journey across the sierra. The road led through a dry ravine, into an open plain that stretched east and south beyond the reach of our vision. It was a desert.
I will not detail the events that occurred to us in the passage of that terrible jornada. They were similar to those we experienced in the deserts to the west. We suffered from thirst, making one stretch of sixty miles without water. We passed over sage-covered plains, without a living object to break the death-like monotony that extended around us. We cooked our meals over the blaze of the artemisia. But our provisions gave out; and the pack mules, one by one, fell under the knives of the hungry hunters. By night we camped without fires; we dared not kindle them; for though, as yet, no pursuers had appeared, we knew they must be on our trail. We had travelled with such speed that they had not been able to come up with us.