The Mormons told me that for more than a fortnight they had been keeping track of these suspicious-looking characters who had been camping in the neighbourhood.
There were repeated falls of snow, and the sierra assumed a thoroughly northern aspect.

Only the multitude of green parrots with pretty red and yellow heads, chattering in the tree-tops and feasting on pine cones, reminded us that we were in southern latitudes.

As all tracks had been obliterated by the snow, I secured a Mormon to guide us southward.
About ten miles south of Pacheco we passed Mound Valley, or "Los Montezumas," so named after the extraordinary number of montezumas, or mounds, found in the locality, probably not far from a thousand.

Looking at them from a distance, there seemed to be some plan in their arrangement, inasmuch as they formed rows running from north to south.

They are small, and nearly all of them are on the south side of a sloping plain which spread itself over about 500 acres in the midst of densely pine-covered highlands.
On making camp a few miles south of this plateau we found that one of the mules had strayed off.