MOQUIS TO FORT DEFIANCE—ATTEMPT TO CROSS MOQUIS DESERT. 125 
made a descent upon the Moquis flocks. He had himself been herding at the time, and showed 
me two scars upon his sides from wounds received inthe engagement. The herders had been 
utterly routed, and retreated to their pueblo, while the conquerers made off with all their stock. 
The country to the north and northwest is rolling for some miles, and then there are elevated 
plateaus rising in successive steps. The most remote appears to be sixty miles off, and higher 
than any table-land that has been passed. Distant peaks can be seen a little east of north. The 
Indians have said that the trail runs northwest, and that it is the only practicable route by 
which upper portions of the river can be attained. Such a course would bring us, at the end 
of ninety miles, opposite to the point where we struck the Cascade river, and only about fifty 
miles distant from it, though we would have travelled, in heading the cafion and side cafions 
of Flax river, nearly three hundred miles. 
= OY 
aN AMEN YA 
Fig. 39.—View north from Oraybe Gardens. 
sit, 
Camp 97, Oraybe gardens, May 15.—No Indians came again to camp. The guide, before 
leaving, had told a Mexican that the distance to the river was more than a hundred miles, and 
that the only watering place was about twenty-five miles from Oraybe. Preferring to see for 
ourselves the condition of the country, we pursued the same general course as before, towards 
the northwest. The top of the mesa on which we had been encamped proved to be very 
narrow, and before we had travelled a mile we came to its northern edge, where there were 
the usual precipice and foot-hills forming the descent to a broad valley. Here, also, the bluffs 
had been formed into terraced gardens and reservoirs. The descent was steep and difficult. 
The valley furnished better grass than any seen since leaving Flax river, but the soil was soft 
and the travelling laborious. We crossed the low land and ascended the opposite mesa. The 
trail was found, and its course followed for ten or eleven miles, when most of the mules again 
