"It may take us down, to some lower level, or it may show us a way south."
"The great Southern Pass is down hereaway somewhar."
"Further east than this. We ought to strike it, though, before we cross the border."
"Mexico ain't a country I'd choose to go inter, ef I hed my own way, but we've got to go for it this time."
But whatever may have been their reason for seeking Mexico, they were just now a good deal puzzled as to the precise path by means of which they might reach it. It was getting late in the day, too, for any kind of exploration, and the mule-teams looked as if they had done about enough.
So it came to pass that the ruined village of the forgotten people was once more occupied.
Did they go into the houses? No. It was the man called Bill who said it, but all the rest of them seemed to feel just as he did, when he remarked:
"Sleep in one of them things? No, I guess not—not even if it was roofed in. They were set up too long ago to suit me."
That stamped him as an American, for there is no other people in the world that hate old houses. No real American was ever known to use an old building of any kind a day longer than he could help. He would as soon think of wearing old clothes just because they were old.
The ground near the ruins was covered with fragments of stone and fallen masonry, but there was a good camping ground between that and the trees from which Murray and Steve had fired at the buck.