It was a bright, warm day in October when José set out for the Huichol country. Josefa had filled his sack with gordas and his bule[15] with water. Tobacco, matches, his machete and blanket were the rest of his equipment. He waved farewell to his wife and started up the hills to the west. Higher and higher he climbed, now scrambling up a slope of rock talus, now following a trickling stream up a ravine, now skirting a fertile hill with the hay still slightly greenish from the recent rains. The little river in the bottom of the great barranca grew smaller and smaller, until at last it was lost to sight entirely, behind the hills of the upper edge. The heat grew perceptibly less as he climbed and the pine trees appeared singly and then in groups. The first night he spent by the side of a blazing pine fire on the edge of the mountain forests, while he listened to the howl of the wolves or the snarl of a jaguar or mountain lion.