298 CANON DEL TOEO. Book II. 
the herd and leaning on my gun, a shot suddenly fell in 
the camp, and I heard the cry of " Thief ! thief!" A 
pursuit was at once made in the surrounding underwood, 
and several shots were fired ; but neither the report of the 
guns nor the pursuit was successful. A pair of boots had 
been stolen from the bedside of one of our drivers, which 
in the morning were found not far off in the grass. All 
were of opinion that the thief had been no other than our 
guest of the preceding night. I cannot decide whether 
gratitude for the hospitality shown him had urged him, or 
whether he followed us, as our people said,, from Chico to 
this place — seventy to eighty miles through the wilderness 
— with the design of stealing the boots. 
The Canon Blanco contracts westward to a narrower 
defile, called the Canon del Toro, through which the road 
runs to Galisteo and Albuquerque. Here we turned south- 
ward on to a plateau of easy ascent : at the top all tree 
vegetation suddenly vanished. From a level prairie the 
view extended down upon the wooded valleys of the Pecos 
and into a deep country encompassed with red sandstone 
rocks, and belonging to the Kio Grande, whilst at a 
distance, behind the neighbourhood of Santa Fe, rose the 
snow-capped peaks of the mountains of Mora and Taos. 
We rested for the night near a small lake, with pretty 
good water. The air was so cold, that in the morning my 
blanket was covered with hoar-frost and my beard was 
frozen. 
The plateau between the Pecos and the Kio Grande, 
which we now traversed, is bordered on the west, along the 
Rio Grande, by a line of isolated mountain groups of 
interesting Alpine forms, between which defiles lead down 
into the valley. They are the Placer Mountains, Sandilla 
Mountains, Manzana Mountains, and other groups whose 
