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Updated: June 17, 2025
On the 15th it was "all ashore not going"; we said our farewells to those leaving for Kanab, and turned our attention to the river. We would see no one after starting till we arrived at the mouth of the Kanab, where we had discovered, during the winter, that a pack-train, with some difficulty, could be brought in with supplies.
That afternoon I arranged to get our baggage up, sending back strong details of men to carry up their own goods, and, as usual, impressing into the service a kind of improvised pack-train consisting of the officers' horses, of two or three captured Spanish cavalry horses, two or three mules which had been shot and abandoned and which our men had taken and cured, and two or three Cuban ponies.
Even up to this elevation the desert reached with its gaunt hand. The clouds overspreading the sky, hiding the sun, made a welcome change. The pack-train rested, and Stewart and Madeline waited for the party to come up. Here he briefly explained to her that Don Carlos and his bandits had left the ranch some time in the night.
He and she, sitting their horses out of arrow range from the main gate seemed confident of taking it and eager to get it over with. They no longer had only six or seven hundred men, but men by the thousand. Their veterans in Roman armor were in command of others now, and they had a human pack-train with them, heavily burdened captives who sulked in chains under a guard.
The last burro of the pack-train plodded over the ridge out of Madeline's sight. She looked backward down the slope, amused to see her guests change wearily from side to side in their saddles. Far below lay the cedar flat and the foothills. Far to the west the sky was still clear, with shafts of sunlight shooting down from behind the encroaching clouds.
Such was the trail and the life of the prospector who beat his way by pack-train and canoe up the canyons of the Fraser to learn whence came the wash of gold flake and nugget which he found in the sand-bars below. Indian unrest was probably first among the causes which led the miners to organize themselves into leagues for protection.
He had ample leisure for speculation, for the experienced animals of the pack-train required scant heed, so regularly they swung along in single file, and the wild whoops of their drivers were for the sake of personal encouragement and the simple joy which very young men find in their own clamor.
At half-past six Captain McCalla came on board to make arrangements for the landing, and in less than two hours there was a large lighter alongside, with a steam-launch to tow it to the place where an officer of General Perez's command was waiting for it with a pack-train and an escort.
However, once up over the hill, with Kayenta out of sight, Nack-yal trotted along fairly well, needing only now and then to be pulled back from his strange swinging to the left off the trail. The pack-train traveled steadily and soon crossed the upland plain to descend into the valley again. Shefford saw the jagged red peaks with an emotion he could not name.
What spirit lay in the deep, mild, clear eyes? Shefford experienced a sudden check to what had been his first growing impression of a drifting, broken old man. "Lassiter, pack what little you can carry mustn't be much and we'll get out of here," said Shefford. "I shore will. Reckon I ain't a-goin' to need a pack-train. We saved the clothes we wore in here. Jane never thought it no use.
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