"We have been much beset by the Seris of late," he said apologetically. "Three times during the past fortnight have we had the village surrounded by parties of them; and, when we heard you approach so late at night, we naturally supposed you to be Indians." The tavern offered little enough comfort; but provisions were plentiful, and there was a good fire where clothes could be dried. The tales which the _rancheros_ had to tell were certainly appalling. Several villages had been entirely depopulated by the savages; many inoffensive travellers had been killed, and others had escaped with the bare life. These Seri Indians were--and even now are--a fierce, intractable people, utterly different from the typical Mexican Indians, who (the Comanches and Apaches apart) are a mild, diligent, and strongly religious race. Mexico still possesses some fifty tribes of redskins, most of which are subdivisions of the very ancient Nahuatl family; but, with the exception of the three tribes just mentioned, many of these had, before von Tempsky's time, begun to intermarry with Europeans and settle in the towns. At first all the guides except Jago, the leader, flatly refused to go any farther, on hearing these gruesome stories; but when, on the next day, a dozen of the _rancheros_ offered to accompany the party as far as Durango, on condition that they would combine with them against any Indians they might meet, the grumbling ceased; for no one was averse to getting a shot at the men who, at one time or other, had robbed every one of them of friend or property. Von Tempsky and Steel were nothing loth, either; the one came from a country where persecution and death were everyday matters; while the other had roughed it for five-and-twenty years, first in the backwoods and latterly at the Californian diggings, where it was a case of "a word and a blow--and the blow first." For a day or two no sign of Indians was observed, and despite the irregularity of the road and the alarming prevalence of rattlesnakes, the journey was not unpleasant. But on the third afternoon, as the guide Jago was seeking to point out from a distance the village where the company was to pass the night, he uttered a horrified exclamation, and made the sign of the cross. At the same moment an angry hubbub arose from the group of _rancheros_. "What is it? What are they all looking at?" inquired von Tempsky. "Smoke; and plenty of it," said the doctor, who was shading his eyes with his hands. "Ay; smoke," said Jago, who spoke English quite well. "They have burnt another village. Let us go forward quickly, Señors."