The trust placed in Mormon visitors to the Hopi was shown by exhibition to them of a sacred stone. On one of the visits of Andrew S. Gibbons, accompanied by his sons, Wm. H. and Richard, the three were guests of old Chief Tuba in Oraibi. Tuba told, of this sacred stone and led his friends down into an underground kiva, from which Tuba's son was despatched into a more remote chamber. He returned bringing the stone. Apparently it was of very fine-grained marble, about 15x18 inches in diameter and a few inches in thickness. Its surface was entirely covered with hieroglyphic markings, concerning which there was no attempt at translation at the time, though there were etched upon it clouds and stars. The Indians appeared to have no translation and only knew that it was very sacred. Tuba said that at one time the stone incautiously was exhibited to an army officer, who attempted to seize it, but the Indians saved the relic and hid it more securely. The only official record available to this office, bearing upon the stone, is found in the preface of Ethnological Report No. 4, as follows: Mr. G. K. Gilbert furnished some data relating to the sacred stone kept by the Indians of the village of Oraibi, on the Moki mesas. This stone was seen by Messrs. John W. Young and Andrew S. Gibbons, and the notes were made by Mr. Gilbert from those furnished him by Young, Few white men have had access to this sacred record, and but few Indians have enjoyed the privilege. The stone is a red-clouded marble, entirely different from anything found in the region. In the Land of the Navajo In 1871, 1872 and 1873 Hamblin did much exploration. He located a settlement on the Paria River, started a ranch in Rock House Valley and laid out a practicable route from Lee's Ferry to the Little Colorado. Actual use of the Lee's Ferry road by wagons was in the spring of 1873 by a party headed by Lorenzo W. Roundy, who crossed the Colorado at Lee's Ferry, passing on to Navajo Springs, seven miles beyond, and thence about ten miles to Bitter Springs and then on to Moen Copie. The last he described as a place "a good deal like St. George, having many springs breaking out from the hills, land limited, partly impregnated with salts." He passed by a Moqui village and thence on to the overland mail route. The Little Colorado was described as "not quite the size of the Virgin River, water a little brackish, but better than that of the Virgin." In May of the same year, Hamblin piloted, as far as Moen Copie, the first ten wagons of the Haight expedition that failed in an attempt to found a settlement on the Little Colorado.