The trail wandered around gorges and bowlders and among pine, cedar, and dwarf oaks and through patches of service berries with their small, grapelike fruit, and crossed numerous small rivulets carrying off the water of the rainy season. Taos, as it was improperly called, lay twelve miles distant at the foot of the other side of the divide, and it was reached shortly after noon without a stop on the way. The "noonings" observed by the caravans were not allowed in an _atejo_, nor were the mules permitted to stop for even a moment while on the way, for if allowed a moment's rest they promptly would lie down, and in attempting to arise under their heavy loads were likely to strain their loins so badly as to render them forever unfit for work. To remove and replace the packs would take too much time. Because of the steady traveling the day's journey rarely exceeded five or six hours nor covered more than twelve to fifteen miles. Taos reached, the packs were removed and covered by the _aparejos_, each pile kept separate. Turned out to graze with the bell mule, without picket rope or hobbles, the animals would not leave her and could be counted on, under ordinary circumstances, to be found near camp and all together. Taos, a miserable village of adobes, and the largest town in the valley, had a population of a few American and Canadian trappers who had married Mexican or Indian women; poor and ignorant Mexicans of all grades except that of pure Spanish blood, and Indians of all grades except, perhaps, those of pure Indian blood. The mixed breed Indians had the more courage of the two, having descended from the Taosas, a tribe still inhabiting the near-by pueblo, whose warlike tendencies were almost entirely displayed in defensive warfare in the holding of their enormous, pyramidal, twin pueblos located on both sides of a clear little stream. In the earlier days marauding bands of Yutaws and an occasional war-party of Cheyennes or Arapahoes had learned at a terrible cost that the Pueblo de Taos was a nut far beyond their cracking, and from these expeditions into the rich and fertile valley but few returned.