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Show 292 WESTERN WILDS. trail on a sandstone flat. Still I maintained the course toward a bright, green valley, which now appeared in the distance. I reached and crossed it, to find that the green was not from grass, as I had supposed, but from thrifty greasewood. There was not a spear of grass nor a drop of water, though the shade of green on the brush showed there was moisture below; and not a horse- track or a Navajo in sight. I began to feel very uncomfortable. The prospect of being lost in that place was decidedly unpleasant. I fired my gun two or three times, and shouted with all my might, but no response. De-termined finally to ascend the ridge west and overlook as much country as possible, I struck up a sloping hollow, and in half a mile came upon the three Navajoes sitting round a deep pool of water and grinning in concert. The aborigines had witnessed all my embarrass-ment, and attempts to trace them below ; but, true to the " noble instincts" of the race, preferred to sit and smile at me working out my own salvation. The horses could not get down in the water hole, so they had taken a blanket full of sand and made a dam across a little depression in the rock ; this we rapidly filled wT ith our wicker- jugs, and so enabled our horses to drink. At 6 o'clock we were off again, and at 8 made a " dry camp." I soon went to sleep, but woke in an hour or so to find that the Navajoes had built an immense bonfire on a hill near by. This was soon answered by another, apparently twenty miles to the south. Our party then took torches of pine limbs and waving them as they went, built three more fires in a line a little north of west. The other party responded with three fires in a line apparently due west. Espanol translated this to mean that a considerable party of Navajoes were half a day's ride south of us; that they would go straight on west, crossing the Little Colorado, and we should not meet them. Again we were oif by moonlight, an hour ahead of the sun, and at 10 A. M. reached the promised water- hole; but it contained only a little mud. Hastily consulting together, the Indians rubbed their fingers in the moist sand and held them up in the air. From this experiment they decided that the late rain had not extended to this region; that this pool had been exhausted but a day or two, and there-fore water would be plenty in a hole some fifteen miles north, which always held out a week longer than this. Espanol told me to follow poco- poco as before ; that as his horse was fresh, he would hurry on to the pool, and come back with two jugs full to meet me. I was soon alone, and had a weary ride of some twelve miles over a hot |
