Three days later the party stood on the brow of a steep bluff looking down upon the Colorado Chiquita river. It had been a weary journey. It was evident that the girl had, after the second day's riding, allowed the horse to go its own way, trusting perhaps to its instinct to make for some habitation, should there be any in the region. There had been no difficulty in following its footsteps until the third day, when they were passing over a stony plateau. Here even the keen sight of the Indians sometimes failed them, and hours were lost in taking up the trail. There was no water to be met with here, and the Indians agreed that the horse was going slowly and weakly, and the girl for the most part walking beside it, as they pointed out by a crushed blade of grass or flattened lichen by the side of the horse's track. Later in the day the trail was straighter, and the chief said confidently, "The horse smells water; the river cannot be many miles away."
It was an hour after starting, on the third morning, that they reached the bluff opposite to them. For a distance of a couple of miles rose a steep island of basalt, some hundreds of feet above the plain around it, and on the summit a large village could be seen.
"Moquis," the Indian said, pointing to it.
"Then she must have got there in safety!" Will exclaimed in delight. The chief shook his head. "Horse not able to swim river, must stop a day to eat grass. There horse!" and he pointed to an animal seven hundred or eight hundred feet below them.
"That is its colour, sure enough," Antonio exclaimed, "but I don't see the se?orita."
"She may be asleep," Will suggested.
"Likely enough, se?or; we shall soon see."
Dismounting, they made their way down the steep descent. Then all leaped into their saddles and galloped forward to the edge of the stream, a quarter of a mile away. The mare, which evidently scented that the new-comers were not Indians, cantered to meet them with a whinny of pleasure. There were no signs of the girl, and all dismounted to search among the low bushes for her, Will loudly calling her name. Presently the Indian, who, with his follower, had moved along the bank, called them.
"She slept here yesterday," he said, and the level grass close to a shrub testified to the truth of the exclamation. The two Indians looked serious.
"What is it, chief?"
"Indians," he said. "White girl come down to river to drink; then she lay down here; then Indians come along; you see footprints on soft earth of bank; they catch her when asleep and carry her off. Teczuma and the Wolf have looked; no marks of little feet; four feet deeper marks than when they came along; Indian carry her off."
"Perhaps they have taken her along the river to some ford, and carried her up to their village."
"Soon see;" and he and the Wolf moved along the bank, the others following at a short distance, having first taken off their horses' bridles, allowing them to take a good drink, and turned them loose to feed.
"Small men," the chief said, when Will with the two chief vaqueros came up to him. "Short steps; got spears and bows."
"How on earth does he know that?" Will said, when the words were translated to him. Sancho pointed to a round mark on the ground.
"There is the butt end of a spear, and I dare say the chief has noticed some holes of a different shape made by the ends of bows."
Half a mile farther the bluffs approached the river and bordered it with a perpendicular cliff, which had doubtless been caused by the face of the hill being eaten away by the river countless ages before. The stream was here some thirty yards from the foot of the cliff. More and more puzzled at the direction in which Clara had been carried, the trackers followed. They had gone a hundred yards along the foot of the cliff when a great stone came bounding down from above, striking the ground a few yards in front of the Indians, who leaped back. Almost instantly a shrill voice shouted from above, and, looking up, they saw a number of natives on a ledge a hundred feet above them, with bows bent threateningly.
"Back, all of you!" Sancho shouted. "Their arrows may be poisoned."
Seeing, however, that the party retreated in haste, the Indians did not shoot; when a short distance away a council was held, and all returned to their horses, mounted, and swam the river; then they rode along to view the cliff. Three or four openings were seen on the level of the ledge on which the Indians were posted, and Will was astonished to see that above, the cliff, which was here quite perpendicular, was covered with strange sculptures, some of which still retained the colour with which they had in times long past been painted.
"They are the old people, the cave-dwellers," Sancho said. "I have heard of them; they were here long before the Moquis were here. They were a people dwelling in caves. There are hundreds of these caves in some places. They have always kept themselves apart, and never made friends with the Moquis. In the early times with the Spaniards there were missionaries among the Moquis, but they could never do anything among the cave people, who are, they say, idolaters and offer human sacrifices."
"How do the people live?" Antonio asked.
"They fish, and steal animals from the Moquis when they get a chance, and they dwell in such inaccessible caves that, once there, they are safe from pursuit.
"If you like, se?or, I will go up to the Moquis village, and try to find out something about them. I don't know the Moquis language, but I understand something of the sign language, which is understood by all Indians, and I dare say that I shall be able to learn something about these people."
Will dismounted as the vaquero rode off, and, bidding Antonio do the same, told the man to take their horses a quarter of a mile away, and there to dismount and cook a meal.
"Now, Antonio," he said, "we have to see how this place can be climbed."
Antonio shook his head. "I should say that it was altogether impossible, se?or. You see there is a zigzag path cut in the face of the cliff up to that ledge. In some places the rock is cut away altogether, and then they have got ladders, which they would no doubt draw up at once if they were attacked. You see the lower ones have already been pulled up. Like enough sentries are posted at each of those breaks when they are threatened with an attack. Besides, the chances are that if they thought there were any risk of our getting up, they would kill the se?orita."
"I see all that, Antonio, and I have no thought of making my way up by the steps; the question is, could it be climbed elsewhere? The other end of the ledge would be the best point to get up at, for any watch that is kept would certainly be where the steps come up."
Antonio shook his head. "Unless one could fly, se?or, there would be no way of getting up there."
"I don't know that," Will said shortly; "wait till I have had a good look at it."
Lying on the ground, with his chin resting on his hands, he gazed intently at the cliff, observing even the most trifling projections, the tiny ledges that here and there ran along the face.
"It would be a difficult job and a dangerous one," he said, "but I am not sure that it cannot be managed. At any rate, I shall try. I am a sailor, you know, Antonio, and am accustomed, when we have been sailing in the gale, to hold on with my toes as well as my fingers. Now, do you go back to the others. I shall want two poles, say fifteen feet long, and some hooks, which I can make from ramrods. Do you see just in the middle of that ledge, where the large square entrance is, the cliff bulges out, and I should say the ledge was twenty feet wide; this is lucky, for if there are sentries on the steps they would not be able to see beyond that point. If they could do so, I should not have much chance of getting up, for it will be a bright moonlight night. When I get to the top—that is, if I do get there—I shall lower down a rope. You can fasten the lariats together. They would hold the weight of a dozen men. The lightest and most active of you must come up first. When two or three are up we can haul the rest up easily enough. Now you can go. I shall be here another half-hour at least. I must see exactly the best way to climb, calculate the number of feet along each of those little ledges to a point where I can reach the one abov............