After a considerable sojourn at Monterey, spent in these very edifying,
but not very profitable amusements, the leader of this vagabond party
set out with his comrades, on his return journey. Instead of retracing
their steps through the mountains, they passed round their southern
extremity, and, crossing a range of low hills, found themselves in the
sandy plains south of Ogden's River; in traversing which, they again
suffered, grievously, for want of water.
In the course of their journey, they encountered a party of Mexicans in
pursuit of a gang of natives, who had been stealing horses. The savages
of this part of California are represented as extremely poor, and
armed only with stone-pointed arrows; it being the wise policy of the
Spaniards not to furnish them with firearms. As they find it difficult,
with their blunt shafts, to kill the wild game of the mountains, they
occasionally supply themselves with food, by entrapping the Spanish
horses. Driving them stealthily into fastnesses and ravines, they
slaughter them without difficulty, and dry their flesh for provisions.
Some they carry off to trade with distant tribes; and in this way, the
Spanish horses pass from hand to hand among the Indians, until they even
find their way across the Rocky Mountains.
The Mexicans are continually on the alert, to intercept these marauders;
but the Indians are apt to outwit them, and force them to make long and
wild expeditions in pursuit of their stolen horses.
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