considerable distance in advance, an eminence or butte which lifted
its summit nearly three hundred feet skyward, and which presented on
the side towards us an almost perpendicular wall. When we approached
it we saw a neat log-cabin nestling under its overarching brow. We
dismounted, led our panting and utterly exhausted animals into the
cabin, closed the doors, and went to the windows with our rifles.

The cabin was about thirty by twenty feet in area, and stood with its
northern end close against the perpendicular wall of the butte, with
an overhanging cliff a hundred feet above it. If a stone had been
dropped from the sheltering cliff it would have fallen several feet
away from the cabin's southern wall.

At the end of the cabin farthest from the butte the ground upon which
it stood broke off perpendicularly twenty feet downward, to a
spring--the source of the brook we had been following since we left
Jemez. The only way to cross from one trail to the other, except by
going several miles down the brook or to the north end of the butte,
was, therefore, through the cabin, and for this purpose a door had
been placed in each side. The cabin could be approached only on the
east and west sides, and was unassailable at its north and south ends.

Each wall contained a small window, except the one which rested
against the butte, and there a wide, stone fireplace had been built.
Three men with plenty of rations and ammunition could make a good
defence. Water could be had by lowering a bucket or canteen from the
southern window to the spring, twenty-four feet below its sill.

The Indians had discovered that we had found shelter from their
pursuit and for the present were safe, and all but five, who soon