It was all the slower because of the weakness of the mules, which throughout all this hair-brained journey had been severely worked, and of late had been poorly fed.
Presently the travellers turned the point of a naked ridge which projected laterally into the valley.

There they came suddenly upon a wide-spread sweep of turf, contrasting so brilliantly with the bygone infertilities that it seemed to them a paradise, and stretching clear on to the bluff of the pueblos.
There, too, with equal suddenness, they came upon peril.

Just beyond the nose of the sandstone promontory there was a bivouac of half naked, dark-skinned horsemen, recognizable at a glance as Apaches.

It was undoubtedly the band of Delgadito.
The camp was half a mile distant.

The Indians, evidently surprised at the appearance of the train, were immediately in commotion.