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12 from Santa Fé to Monterey. First, Escalante entertained a theory that a better route to the Pacific could be found northward than toward the south. Then there was always a fascination attending this region, with its great and perpetual Northern Mystery; perhaps the Arctic Ocean came down hereabout, or at least an arm of the Anian Strait might be found; nor were forgotten the rivers spoken of by different persons on different occasions as flowing hence into the Pacific. And last of all it may be that the rumor of Pueblo villages in this quarter carried the explorers further north than otherwise they would have gone.

However this may have been, they were now of opinion that they had penetrated far enough in a northerly direction, and from this point must take a southerly course. There were here no town-builders like the Moquis and Zuñis, as the priests had been led to suppose, but there were wild Indians, and the first they had seen in this vicinity. At first these savages manifested fear, but when assured that the strangers had not come to harm them, and were in no way leagued with the dreaded Comanches, they welcomed them kindly and gave them food. They were simple-minded and inoffensive, these native Yutas, very ready to guide the travellers whithersoever they would go; but they begged them to return and establish a mission in their midst; in token of which, and of their desire to adopt the Christian faith, they gave the priests a kind of hieroglyphic painting on deer-skin.