Forty miles above the Gulf of California, the Colorado ceases to be navigable, and presents from its sources, for seven hundred miles, nothing but an uninterrupted series of noisy and tremendous cataracts, bordered on each side by a chain of perpendicular rocks, five or six hundred feet high, while the country all around seems to have been shaken to its very centre by violent volcanic eruptions.
Winter at length passed away, and with the first weeks of spring were renovated our hopes of escape.

The Arrapahoes, relenting in their vigilance, went so far as to offer us to accompany them in an expedition eastward.

To this, of course, we agreed, and entered very willingly upon the beautiful prairies of North Sonora.

Fortune favoured us; one day, the Arrapahoes, having followed a trail of Apaches and Mexicans, with an intent to surprise and destroy them, fell themselves into a snare, in which they were routed, and many perished.
We made no scruples of deserting our late masters, and, spurring our gallant steeds, we soon found that our unconscious liberators were a party of officers bound from Monterey to Santa Fe, escorted by two-and-twenty Apaches and some twelve or fifteen families of Ciboleros.
I knew the officers, and was very glad to have intelligence from California.

Isabella was as bright as ever, but not quite so light-hearted.