spot on his nose, and a mane that swept to his knees. “His name's
Nack-yal,” Withers had said. “It means two bits, or twenty-five cents.
He ain't worth more.” To look at Nack-yal had pleased Shefford very
much indeed, but, once upon his back, he grew dubious. The mustang
acted queer. He actually looked back at Shefford, and it was a look of
speculation and disdain. Shefford took exception to Nack-yal's manner
and to his reluctance to go, and especially to a habit the mustang had
of turning off the trail to the left. Shefford had managed some rather
spirited horses back in Illinois; and though he was willing and eager to
learn all over again, he did not enjoy the prospect of Lake and Withers
seeing this black mustang make a novice of him. And he guessed that was
just what Nack-yal intended to do. However, once up over the hill, with
Kayenta out of sight, Nack-yal trotted along fairly well, needing only
now and then to be pulled back from his strange swinging to the left off
the trail.
The pack-train traveled steadily and soon crossed the upland plain to
descend into the valley again. Shefford saw the jagged red peaks with
an emotion he could not name. The cañon between them were purple in the
shadows, the great walls and slopes brightened to red, and the tips were
gold in the sun. Shefford forgot all about his mustang and the trail.
Suddenly with a pound of hoofs Nack-yal seemed to rise. He leaped
sidewise out of the trail, came down stiff-legged. Then Shefford shot
out of the saddle. He landed so hard that he was stunned for an instant.
Sitting up, he saw the mustang bent down, eyes and ears showing fight,
and his forefeet spread. He appeared to be looking at something in the
trail. Shefford got up and soon saw what had been the trouble. A long,
crooked stick, rather thick and black and yellow, lay in the trail, and
any mustang looking for an excuse to jump might have mistaken it for
a rattlesnake. Nack-yal appeared disposed to be satisfied, and gave
Shefford no trouble in mounting. The incident increased Shefford's
dubiousness. These Arizona mustangs were unknown quantities.
Thereafter Shefford had an eye for the trail rather than the scenery,
and this continued till the pack-train entered the mouth of the Sagi.
Then those wonderful lofty cliffs, with their peaks and towers and
spires, loomed so close and so beautiful that he did not care if
Nack-yal did throw him. Along here, however, the mustang behaved well,
and presently Shefford decided that if it had been otherwise he would
have walked. The trail suddenly stood on end and led down into the deep
wash, where some days before he had seen the stream of reddish water.
This day there appeared to be less water and it was not so red. Nack-yal
sank deep as he took short and careful steps down. The burros and other
mustangs were drinking, and Nack-yal followed suit. The Indian, with a
hand clutching his mustang's mane, rode up a steep, sandy slope on the
other side that Shefford would not have believed any horse could climb.
The burros plodded up and over the rim, with Withers calling to them.
Joe Lake swung his rope and cracked the flanks of the gray mare and the
red mule; and the way the two kicked was a revelation and a warning to
Shefford. When his turn came to climb the trail he got off and walked,
an action that Nack-yal appeared fully to appreciate.
From the head of this wash the trail wound away up the widening cañon,
through greasewood flats and over grassy levels and across sandy
stretches. The looming walls made the valley look narrow, yet it must
have been half a mile wide. The slopes under the cliffs were dotted with
huge stones and cedar-trees. There were deep indentations in the walls,
running back to form box cañon, choked with green of cedar and spruce
and pinyon. These notches haunted Shefford, and he was ever on the
lookout for more of them.
Withers came back to ride just in advance and began to talk.
“Reckon this Sagi cañon is your Deception Pass,” he said. “It's sure
a queer hole. I've been lost more than once, hunting mustangs in here.
I've an idea Nas Ta Bega knows all this country. He just pointed out
a cliff-dwelling to me. See it?... There 'way up in that cave of the
wall.”
Shefford saw a steep, rough slope leading up to a bulge of the cliff,
and finally he made out strange little houses with dark, eyelike
windows. He wanted to climb up there. Withers called his attention to
more caves with what he believed were the ruins of cliff-dwellings. And
as they rode along the trader showed him remarkable formations of
rock where the elements were slowly hollowing out a bridge. They came
presently to a region of intersecting cañon, and here the breaking of
the trail up and down the deep washes took Withers back to his task with
the burros and gave Shefford more concern than he liked with Nack-yal.
The mustang grew unruly and was continually turning to the left.
Sometimes he tried to climb the steep slope. He had to be pulled hard
away from the opening cañon on the left. It seemed strange to Shefford
that the mustang never swerved to the right. This habit of Nack-yal's
and the increasing caution needed on the trail took all of Shefford's
attention. When he dismounted, however, he had a chance to look around,
and more and more he was amazed at the increasing proportions and
wildness of the Sagi.
He came at length to a place where a fallen tree blocked the trail. All
of the rest of the pack-train had jumped the log. But Nack-yal balked.
Shefford dismounted, pulled the bridle over the mustang's head, and
tried to lead him. Nack-yal, however, refused to budge. Whereupon
Shefford got a stick and, remounting, he gave the balky mustang a cut
across the flank. Then something violent happened. Shefford received a
sudden propelling jolt, and then he was rising into the air, and then
falling. Before he alighted he had a clear image of Nack-yal in the air
above him, bent double, and seemingly possessed of devils. Then Shefford
hit the ground with no light thud. He was thoroughly angry when he got
dizzily upon his feet, but he was not quick enough to catch the mustang.
Nack-yal leaped easily over the log and went on ahead, dragging his
bridle. Shefford hurried after him, and the faster he went just by so
much the cunning Nack-yal accelerated his gait. As the pack-train was
out of sight somewhere ahead, Shefford could not call to his companions
to halt his mount, so he gave up trying, and walked on now with free and
growing appreciation of his surroundings.
The afternoon had waned. The sun blazed low in the west in a notch of
the cañon ramparts, and one wall was darkening into purple shadow while
the other shone through a golden haze. It was a weird, wild world
to Shefford, and every few strides he caught his breath and tried to
realize actuality was not a dream.
Nack-yal kept about a hundred paces to the fore and ever and anon he
looked back to see how his new master was progressing. He varied these
occasions by reaching down and nipping a tuft of grass. Evidently he was
too intelligent to go on fast enough to be caught by Withers. Also he
kept continually looking up the slope to the left as if seeking a way to
climb out of the valley in that direction. Shefford thought it was
well the trail lay at the foot of a steep slope that ran up to unbroken
bluffs.
The sun set and the cañon lost its red and its gold and deepened its
purple. Shefford calculated he had walked five miles, and though he did
not mind the effort, he would rather have ridden Nack-yal into camp.
He mounted a cedar ridge, crossed some sandy washes, turned a corner of
bold wall to enter a wide, green level. The mustangs were rolling and
snorting. He heard the bray of a burro. A bright blaze of camp-fire
greeted him, and the dark figure of the Indian approached to intercept
and catch Nack-yal. When he stalked into camp Withers wore a beaming
smile, and Joe Lake, who was on his knees making biscuit dough in a pan,
stopped proceedings and drawled:
“Reckon Nack-yal bucked you off.”
“Bucked! Was that it? Well, he separated himself from me in a new and
somewhat painful manner--to me.”
“Sure, I saw that in his eye,” replied Lake; and Withers laughed with
him.
“Nack-yal never was well broke,” he said. “But he's a good mustang,
nothing like Joe's Navvy or that gray mare Dynamite. All this Indian
stock will buck on a man once in a while.”
“I'll take the bucking along with the rest,” said Shefford. Both men
liked his reply, and the Indian smiled for the first time.
Soon they all sat round a spread tarpaulin and ate like wolves. After
supper came the rest and talk before the camp-fire. Joe Lake was droll;
he said the most serious things in a way to make Shefford wonder if
he was not joking. Withers talked about the cañon, the Indians, the
mustangs, the scorpions running out of the heated sand; and to Shefford
it was all like a fascinating book. Nas Ta Bega smoked in silence, his
brooding eyes upon the fire.
V. ON THE TRAIL
Shefford was awakened next morning by a sound he had never heard
before--the plunging of hobbled horses on soft turf. It was clear
daylight, with a ruddy color in the sky and a tinge of red along the
cañon rim. He saw Withers, Lake, and the Indian driving the mustangs
toward camp.
The burros appeared lazy, yet willing. But the mustangs and the mule
Withers called Red and the gray mare Dynamite were determined not to be
driven into camp. It was astonishing how much action they had, how much
ground they could cover with their forefeet hobbled together. They
were exceedingly skilful; they lifted both forefeet at once, and then
plunged. And they all went in different directions. Nas Ta Bega darted
in here and there to head off escape.
Shefford pulled on his boots and went out to help. He got too close to
the gray mare and, warned by a yell from Withers, he jumped back just in
time to avoid her vicious heels. Then Shefford turned his attention to
Nack-yal and chased him all over the flat in a futile effort to catch
him. Nas Ta Bega came to Shefford's assistance and put a rope over
Nack-yal's head.
“Don't ever get behind one of these mustangs,” said Withers, warningly,
as Shefford came up. “You might be killed.... Eat your bite now. We'll
soon be out of here.”
Shefford had been late in awakening. The others had breakfasted. He
found eating somewhat difficult in the excitement that ensued. Nas Ta
Bega held ropes which were round the necks of Red and Dynamite. The mule
showed his cunning and always appeared to present his heels to Withers,
who tried to approach him with a pack-saddle. The patience of the trader
was a revelation to Shefford. And at length Red was cornered by the
three men, the pack-saddle was strapped on, and then the packs. Red
promptly bucked the packs off, and the work had to be done over again.
Then Red dropped his long ears and seemed ready to be tractable.
When Shefford turned his attention to Dynamite he decided that this
was his first sight of a wild horse. The gray mare had fiery eyes that
rolled and showed the white. She jumped straight up, screamed, pawed,
bit, and then plunged down to shoot her hind hoofs into the air as high
as her head had been. She was amazingly agile and she seemed mad to kill
something. She dragged the Indian about, and when Joe Lake got a rope
on her hind foot she dragged them both. They lashed her with the ends
of the lassoes, which action only made her kick harder. She plunged
into camp, drove Shefford flying for his life, knocked down two of the
burros, and played havoc with the unstrapped packs. Withers ran to
the assistance of Lake, and the two of them hauled back with all their
strength and weight. They were both powerful and heavy men. Dynamite
circled round and finally, after kicking the camp-fire to bits, fell
down on her haunches in the hot embers. “Let--her--set--there!” panted
Withers. And Joe Lake shouted, “Burn up, you durn coyote!” Both men
appeared delighted that she had brought upon herself just punishment.
Dynamite sat in the remains of the fire long enough to get burnt, and
then she got up and meekly allowed Withers to throw a tarpaulin and a
roll of blankets over her and tie them fast.
Lake and Withers were sweating freely when this job was finished.
“Say, is that a usual morning's task with the pack-animals?” asked
Shefford.
“They're all pretty decent to-day, except Dynamite,” replied Withers.
“She's got to be worked out.”
Shefford felt both amusement and consternation. The sun was just rising
over the ramparts of the cañon, and he had already seen more difficult
and dangerous work accomplished than half a dozen men of his type could
do in a whole day. He liked the outlook of his new duty as Withers's
assistant, but he felt helplessly inefficient. Still, all he needed
was experience. He passed over what he anticipated would be pain and
peril--the cost was of no moment.
Soon the pack-train was on the move, with the Indian leading. This
morning Nack-yal began his strange swinging off to the left, precisely
as he had done the day before. It got to be annoying to Shefford, and
he lost patience with the mustang and jerked him sharply round. This,
however, had no great effect upon Nack-yal.
As the train headed straight up the cañon Joe Lake dropped back to ride
beside Shefford. The Mormon had been amiable and friendly.
“Flock of deer up that draw,” he said, pointing up a narrow side cañon.
Shefford gazed to see a half-dozen small, brown, long-eared objects,
very like burros, watching the pack-train pass.
“Are they deer?” he asked, delightedly.
“Sure are,” replied Joe, sincerely. “Get down and shoot one. There's a
rifle in your saddle-sheath.”
Shefford had already discovered that he had been armed this morning, a
matter which had caused him reflection. These animals certainly looked
like deer; he had seen a few deer, though not in their native wild
haunts; and he experienced the thrill of the hunter. Dismounting, he
drew the rifle out of the sheath and started toward the little cañon.
“Hyar! Where you going with that gun?” yelled Withers. “That's a bunch
of burros.... Joe's up to his old tricks. Shefford, look out for Joe!”
Rather sheepishly Shefford returned to his mustang and sheathed the
rifle, and then took a long look at the animals up the draw. They,
resembled deer, but upon second glance they surely were burros.
“Durn me! Now if I didn't think they sure were deer!” exclaimed Joe. He
appeared absolutely sincere and innocent. Shefford hardly knew how to
take this likable Mormon, but vowed he would be on his guard in the
future.
Nas Ta Bega soon led the pack-train toward the left wall of the cañon,
and evidently intended to scale it. Shefford could not see any trail,
and the wall appeared steep and insurmountable. But upon nearing the
cliff he saw a narrow broken trail leading zigzag up over smooth rock,
weathered slope, and through cracks.
“Spread out, and careful now!” yelled Withers.
The need of both advices soon became manifest to Shefford. The burros
started stones rolling, making danger for those below. Shefford
dismounted and led Nack-yal and turned aside many a rolling rock. The
Indian and the burros, with the red mule leading, climbed steadily. But
the mustangs had trouble. Joe's spirited bay had to be coaxed to face
the ascent; Nack-yal balked at every difficult step; and Dynamite
slipped on a flat slant of rock and slid down forty feet. Withers and
Lake with ropes hauled the mare out of the dangerous position. Shefford,
who brought up the rear, saw all the action, and it was exciting, but
his pleasure in the climb was spoiled by sight of blood and hair on
the stones. The ascent was crooked, steep, and long, and when Shefford
reached the top of the wall he was glad to rest. It made him gasp to
look down and see what he had surmounted. The cañon floor, green and
level, lay a thousand feet below; and the wild burros which had followed
on the trail looked like rabbits.
Shefford mounted presently, and rode out upon a wide, smooth trail
leading into a cedar forest. There were bunches of gray sage in the open
places. The air was cool and crisp, laden with a sweet fragrance. He saw
Lake and Withers bobbing along, now on one side of the trail, now on the
other, and they kept to a steady trot. Occasionally the Indian and his
bright-red saddle-blanket showed in an opening of the cedars.
It was level country, and there was nothing for Shefford to see except
cedar and sage, an outcropping of red rock in places, and the winding
trail. Mocking-birds made melody everywhere. Shefford seemed full of
a strange pleasure, and the hours flew by. Nack-yal still wanted to be
everlastingly turning off the trail, and, moreover, now he wanted to go
faster. He was eager, restless, dissatisfied.
At noon the pack-train descended into a deep draw, well covered with
cedar and sage. There was plenty of grass and shade, but no water.
Shefford was surprised to see that every pack was removed; however, the
roll of blankets was left on Dynamite.
The men made a fire and began to cook a noonday meal. Shefford, tired
and warm, sat in a shady spot and watched. He had become all eyes. He
had almost forgotten Fay Larkin; he had forgotten his trouble; and
the present seemed sweet and full. Presently his ears were filled by a
pattering roar and, looking up the draw, he saw two streams of sheep
and goats coming down. Soon an Indian shepherd appeared, riding a fine
mustang. A cream-colored colt bounded along behind, and presently a
shaggy dog came in sight. The Indian dismounted at the camp, and his
flock spread by in two white and black streams. The dog went with them.
Withers and Joe shook hands with the Indian, whom Joe called “Navvy,”
and Shefford lost no time in doing likewise. Then Nas Ta Bega came in,
and he and the Navajo talked. When the meal was ready all of them sat
down round the canvas. The shepherd did not tie his horse.
Presently Shefford noticed that Nack-yal had returned to camp and was
acting strangely. Evidently he was attracted by the Indian's mustang or
the cream-colored colt. At any rate, Nack-yal hung around, tossed his
head, whinnied in a low, nervous manner, and looked strangely eager and
wild. Shefford was at first amused, then curious. Nack-yal approached
too close to the mother of the colt, and she gave him a sounding kick in
the ribs. Nack-yal uttered a plaintive snort and backed away, to stand,
crestfallen, with all his eagerness and fire vanished.
Nas Ta Bega pointed to the mustang and said something in his own tongue.
Then Withers addressed the visiting Indian, and they exchanged some
words, whereupon the trader turned to Shefford:
“I bought Nack-yal from this Indian three years ago. This mare is
Nack-yal's mother. He was born over here to the south. That's why he
always swung left off the trail. He wanted to go home. Just now he
recognized his mother and she whaled away and gave him a whack for his
pains. She's got a colt now and probably didn't recognize Nack-yal. But
he's broken-hearted.”
The trader laughed, and Joe said, “You can't tell what these durn
mustangs will do.” Shefford felt sorry for Nack-yal, and when it came
time to saddle him again found him easier to handle than ever before.
Nack-yal stood with head down, broken-spirited.
Shefford was the first to ride up out of the draw, and once upon the
top of the ridge he halted to gaze, wide-eyed and entranced. A rolling,
endless plain sloped down beneath him, and led him on to a distant
round-topped mountain. To the right a red cañon opened its jagged jaws,
and away to the north rose a whorled and strange sea of curved ridges,
crags, and domes.
Nas Ta Bega rode up then, leading the pack-train.
“Bi Nai, that is Na-tsis-an,” he said, pointing to the mountain. “Navajo
Mountain. And there in the north are the cañon.”
Shefford followed the Indian down the trail and soon lost sight of that
wide green-and-red wilderness. Nas Ta Bega turned at an intersecting
trail, rode down into the cañon, and climbed out on the other side.
Shefford got a glimpse now and then of the black dome of the mountain,
but for the most part the distant points of the country were hidden.
They crossed many trails, and went up and down the sides of many shallow
cañon. Troops of wild mustangs whistled at them, stood on ridge-tops to
watch, and then dashed away with manes and tails flying.
Withers rode forward presently and halted the pack-train. He had some
conversation with Nas Ta Bega, whereupon the Indian turned his horse and
trotted back, to disappear in the cedars.
“I'm some worried,” explained Withers. “Joe thinks he saw a bunch of
horsemen trailing us. My eyes are bad and I can't see far. The Indian
will find out. I took a roundabout way to reach the village because I'm
always dodging Shadd.”
This communication lent an added zest to the journey. Shefford could
hardly believe the truth that his eyes and his ears brought to his
consciousness. He turned in behind Withers and rode down the rough
trail, helping the mustang all in his power. It occurred to him that
Nack-yal had been entirely different since that meeting with his mother
in the draw. He turned no more off the trail; he answered readily to the
rein; he did not look afar from every ridge. Shefford conceived a liking
for the mustang.
Withers turned sidewise in his saddle and let his mustang pick the way.
“Another time we'll go up round the base of the mountain, where you can
look down on the grandest scene in the world,” said he. “Two hundred
miles of wind-worn rock, all smooth and bare, without a single straight
line--cañon, caves, bridges--the most wonderful country in the world!
Even the Indians haven't explored it. It's haunted, for them, and they
have strange gods. The Navajos will hunt on this side of the mountain,
but not on the other. That north side is consecrated ground. My wife
has long been trying to get the Navajos to tell her the secret of
Nonnezoshe. Nonnezoshe means Rainbow Bridge. The Indians worship it, but
as far as she can find out only a few have ever seen it. I imagine it'd
be worth some trouble.”
“Maybe that's the bridge Venters talked about--the one overarching the
entrance to Surprise Valley,” Said Shefford.
“It might be,” replied the trader. “You've got a good chance of finding
out. Nas Ta Bega is the man. You stick to that Indian. ... Well, we
start down here into this cañon, and we go down some, I reckon. In
half an hour you'll see sago-lilies and Indian paint-brush and vermilion
cactus.”
. . . . . . . . . . .
About the middle of the afternoon the pack-train and its drivers arrived
at the hidden Mormon village. Nas Ta Bega had not returned from his
scout back along the trail.
Shefford's sensibilities had all been overstrained, but he had left in
him enthusiasm and appreciation that made the situation of this village
a fairyland. It was a valley, a cañon floor, so long that he could
not see the end, and perhaps a quarter of a mile wide. The air was hot,
still, and sweetly odorous of unfamiliar flowers. Piñon and cedar trees
surrounded the little log and stone houses, and along the walls of the
cañon stood sharp-pointed, dark-green spruce-trees. These walls were
singular of shape and color. They were not imposing in height, but they
waved like the long, undulating swell of a sea. Every foot of surface
was perfectly smooth, and the long curved lines of darker tinge that
streaked the red followed the rounded line of the slope at the top. Far
above, yet overhanging, were great yellow crags and peaks, and between
these, still higher, showed the pine-fringed slope of Navajo Mountain
with snow in the sheltered places, and glistening streams, like silver
threads, running down.
All this Shefford noticed as he entered the valley from round a corner
of wall. Upon nearer view he saw and heard a host of children, who,
looking up to see the intruders, scattered like frightened quail. Long
gray grass covered the ground, and here and there wide, smooth paths
had been worn. A swift and murmuring brook ran through the middle of the
valley, and its banks were bordered with flowers.
Withers led the way to one side near the wall, where a clump of
cedar-trees and a dark, swift spring boiling out of the rocks and banks
of amber moss with purple blossoms made a beautiful camp site. Here
the mustangs were unsaddled and turned loose without hobbles. It was
certainly unlikely that they would leave such a spot. Some of the burros
were unpacked, and the others Withers drove off into the village.
“Sure's pretty nice,” said Joe, wiping his sweaty face. “I'll never
want to leave. It suits me to lie on this moss.... Take a drink of that
spring.”