They were often followed by the herders, but if they did not overtake the thieves before they got into the deep canons of the mountains, they would usually turn back and let them go rather than be led into ambush in some strange narrow place where escape would be impossible and they might be filled with arrows.
No doubt the trail we had followed across the plains, where there were so many horses' bones, was one of these trails along which the thieving Indians took their booty which died upon the trip.
Our road from here was near the foot-hills on the west side of a level, grassy, thinly timbered valley, and as we advanced we noticed that the timber grew more plentiful and the trees larger, without much underbrush.

We also noticed that the vegetation was ranker and no doubt the soil was very rich.

We then came to a point where the mountain reaches out almost across the valley to meet the mountain on the east side.

Here we found a gravelly creek with but little water, but as soon as we passed this point we saw the valley suddenly widening out, and beautiful groves of live oak trees scattered all around.

The vegetation here was very rank, the mustard ten feet high in places, making it difficult to see out of the road.