"It certainly would make an immense difference," said I, "and it will pay us to find that old trail if it takes us a week to do it. So, let us dig out first thing to-morrow, Dick, and find a good camping-place as a base."
Accordingly we broke camp again early next morning, and following along the rim of the cañon we presently drew near the foothills. As we approached the mountain we were able to distinguish with more clearness the details of its form, and the more clearly we could distinguish them the more were we impressed with the difficulty and the magnitude of the task we had undertaken. It was not going to be the simple, straightforward matter I had at first imagined.
Seen from a distance the north peak looked smooth and symmetrical, but when you came close to it you found that it was broken up into cliffs and cañons, some of them of great height and depth. On its northern face, a thousand feet or so below the summit, our attention was drawn to a great semicircular precipice which looked very like the upper half of an old volcanic crater, the lower half, presumably, having broken away and fallen down the mountain.
"A pretty tough piece of country, Frank," said my companion, "and a pretty large stretch of it, too, for us to tramp over; for, by the look of it from here, our horses won't be much use to us—at least, when we get up above the lower spurs. Let us try this gully to the left: there's probably water up there; I see the tops of two or three cottonwoods."
Turning in that direction, therefore, we presently came upon a diminutive stream which ran down and fell into the cañon, and passing between two high rocks, which looked as though they had been split apart with a wedge to let the water out, we found ourselves in a little park-like valley, flanked on either side by high ridges.
"This ought to do, Dick," said I, "at any rate for the present; plenty of grass, plenty of wood and plenty of water. Just the place."
"Yes, this is all right; couldn't be better. Let's unsaddle at once, make our camp, and after dinner we'll ride down in the direction of Hermanos and do a little prospecting."
Having chosen a good spot, we arranged a comfortable camp, and after a hasty dinner we started out; first picketing Uncle Fritz to keep him from coming trailing after us.
Immediately to the south of our camping-place, forming one of the boundaries of the little ravine, in fact, there stretched down from the mountain a great, bare rib of granite, almost devoid of vegetation, which projected a long way out into the valley, and as it lay square across our course we decided, instead of going round the end of it, to ride up to the top in order to get a good lookout over the country we proposed to examine. From the summit of this ridge, at a point about four hundred feet above the plain, we were able to get a very good view of all the wide stretch of comparatively level ground below us, including the village of Hermanos and the green irrigated fields around it, which from this elevation were distinctly visible. Except for this tiny oasis, the whole plain, bounded on the east by the Mosby Ridge, and on the south by the Santa Clara mountains, appeared to be one uniform, level stretch of sage-brush desert—dull, gray and uninviting.