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Breakfast, as you may imagine, was speedily disposed of, and, having seen to the stock, the party started out to explore the mesa itself. As has been said, the side upon which they had camped the night before was nothing but a sheer cliff. Under the guidance of Coyote Pete, they now set out to encircle the strange precipitous formation.
The officer in command of the escort was dismissed the service, as he could not give any satisfactory reason for not going to the rescue of the caravan he had been ordered to guard. The Wagon Mound, so called from its resemblance to a covered army-wagon, is a rocky mesa forty miles from Point of Rocks, westwardly.
On the east slopes of the middle Sierras the pines, all but an occasional yellow variety, desert the stream borders about the level of the lowest lakes, and the birches and tree-willows begin. The firs hold on almost to the mesa levels, there are no foothills on this eastern slope, and whoever has firs misses nothing else.
In the midst of a vivid account of the juxtaposition of a telephone battery and a curious yet unsuspicious Apache, Shoop paused in the recital and gazed out across the mesa. "It's the boss," he said, getting to his feet. "Wonder what's up?" Corliss rode into camp, swung from the saddle, and called to Shoop.
Tradition tells that they were driven by a great flood from the site they now occupy, which is in the valley below the mesa, and that they resorted to the mesa for protection from the rising waters. The waters rose to the very summit of the mesa, and to appease the aggressive element a human sacrifice was necessary.
A pearl from heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire into this chasm. A stream of opal flowed out of the sun, to touch each peak, mesa, dome, parapet, temple and tower, cliff and cleft into the new-born life of another day. I sat there for a long time and knew that every second the scene changed, yet I could not tell how.
As the sheep crossed they were even allowed to straggle out along the slopes of the forbidden mesa, untended by their shepherds; and if the upper range was the special reserve of the cowmen the sheep owners showed no knowledge of the fact.
Just wait until the men have returned from the war-path, and you will see. Evil is coming to us. Did you notice, satyumishe, on the night when they carried sa nashtio maseua back to the Tyuonyi how angry the Shiuana were; how the lightning flamed through the clouds and killed the trees on the mesa?
Gil de Mesa had begged at first to be allowed to accompany him. But for Gil he had other work, of which the instructions he left were very full. The distance was short three miles along the Gave de Pau and Don Antonio covered it on a gently ambling mule, such as might have been bred to bear some aged dignitary of Holy Church.
They had been chasing a jack-rabbit across the mesa for sport. Their broncos were now grazing close at hand. "Ever notice how a jack-rabbit jumps high when it's crowded?" Dud asked idly. Bob nodded. "Like a deer. Crowd one an' he gets to jumpin' high. 'D you see that jack turn a somersault just as I threw my rope the last time?" Dud's keen eyes ranged the landscape.
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