He thinks more of those cheap cotton prints, with their red and green and yellow flowers, than all the silk ever spun since the days of Mother Eve.

Ha! ha! ha!" The laugh, in which Roblez heartily joined, was still echoing on the air as the two horsemen entered a pass leading through the mountains.

It was the depression in the sierra, seen shortly after parting with the Horned Lizard and his band.

It was a pass rugged with rock, and almost trackless, here and there winding about, and sometimes continued through canons or clefts barely wide enough to give way to the mules with the loads upon their backs.
For all this the animals of the travellers seemed to journey along it without difficulty, only the American horse showing signs of awkwardness.

All the others went as if they had trodden it before.
For several hours they kept on through this series of canons and gorges--here and there crossing a transverse ridge that, cutting off a bend, shortened the distance.
Just before sunset the party came to a halt; not in the defile itself, but in one of still more rugged aspect, that led laterally into the side of the mountain.