The mill at Wickenburg, belonging to the same company, was a fine adobe structure, roofed with shingles, and had just gone into operation. They had previously had a small five-stamp mill, which paid very well; but this new mill ran twenty stamps, and would crush forty tons of quartz per day, when worked to its full capacity. Their ore was reputed to average from fifty to seventy dollars per ton, though of course "assaying" much more, and we were assured would pay for working, if it yielded only from twenty to thirty dollars per ton. If so, we thought, stock in the Vulture Company must be a "gilt-edged" investment; and their noble mine certainly was the best-looking enterprise, we had yet seen in Arizona. It appeared, however, to be a sort of "pocket" vein, as prospecting on either side of it, as yet, had failed to discover other points worth working. Fine as it was, the mine was embarrassed by financial difficulties, and was then in the hands of creditors, authorized to work it until their claims were met, though these troubles it was thought would soon end. Thence on to Prescott, _via_ Skull Valley, some eighty-four miles, we passed without further mishap. We made the distance in two and a-half days, and rolled into the capital, just as the last rays of the setting sun were purpling the triple peaks of the distant San Francisco Mountains. The road generally was naturally a good one, but here and there developed a peculiarity seldom seen elsewhere. For example, on a perfectly good road, apparently, even dry and dusty, suddenly a mule would go in to his girth or a wheel to the hub, and there seemed no bottom to the execrable quicksands. In other places, there had been surface-water or mud, that served as a warning. But between Skull Valley and Prescott, when trotting along as usual, we often struck spots, where the dust was blowing, and yet when we ventured on, our vehicles seemed bound for China or Japan, rather than Prescott. Skull Valley itself proved to be a narrow little vale, of perhaps a thousand or two acres, but devoid of timber, and inaccessible in all directions, except over bad mountains. A few ranches had been started here, and a petty Military Post was there to protect them; but this last had already been ordered away, the location was so faulty, and with its departure, Skull Valley, as a settlement, seemed likely to collapse.