ground, at an easy canter; and Shefford had a grim realization of
what this flight was going to be for these three fugitives, now so
unaccustomed to riding. Jane and Lassiter, however, needed no watching,
and showed they had never forgotten how to manage a horse. The Indian
back-trailed yesterday's path for an hour, then headed west to the left,
and entered a low pass. All parts of this plateau country looked alike,
and Shefford was at some pains to tell the difference of this strange
ground from that which he had been over. In another hour they got out
of the rugged, broken rock to the wind-worn and smooth, shallow cañon.
Shefford calculated that they were coming to the end of the plateau.
The low walls slanted lower; the cañon made a turn; Nas Ta Bega
disappeared; and then the others of the party. When Shefford turned the
corner of wall he saw a short strip of bare, rocky ground with only sky
beyond. The Indian and his followers had halted in a group. Shefford
rode to them, halted himself, and in one sweeping glance realized the
meaning of their silent gaze. But immediately Nas Ta Bega started
down; and the mustangs, without word or touch, followed him. Shefford,
however, lingered on the promontory.
His gaze seemed impelled and held by things afar--the great
yellow-and-purple corrugated world of distance, now on a level with
his eyes. He was drawn by the beauty and the grandeur of that scene and
transfixed by the realization that he had dared to venture to find a
way through this vast, wild, and upflung fastness. He kept looking afar,
sweeping the three-quartered circle of horizon till his judgment of
distance was confounded and his sense of proportion dwarfed one moment
and magnified the next. Then he withdrew his fascinated gaze to adopt
the Indian's method of studying unlimited spaces in the desert--to look
with slow, contracted eyes from near to far.
His companions had begun to zigzag down a long slope, bare of rock, with
yellow gravel patches showing between the scant strips of green, and
here and there a scrub-cedar. Half a mile down, the slope merged into
green level. But close, keen gaze made out this level to be a rolling
plain, growing darker green, with blue lines of ravines, and thin,
undefined spaces that might be mirage. Miles and miles it swept and
relied and heaved to lose its waves in apparent darker level. A round,
red rock stood isolated, marking the end of the barren plain, and
farther on were other round rocks, all isolated, all of different shape.
They resembled huge grazing cattle. But as Shefford gazed, and his sight
gained strength from steadily holding it to separate features these
rocks were strangely magnified. They grew and grew into mounds, castles,
domes, crags--great, red, wind-carved buttes. One by one they drew his
gaze to the wall of upflung rock. He seemed to see a thousand domes of a
thousand shapes and colors, and among them a thousand blue clefts, each
one a little mark in his sight, yet which he knew was a cañon. So far
he gained some idea of what he saw. But beyond this wide area of curved
lines rose another wall, dwarfing the lower, dark red, horizon--long,
magnificent in frowning boldness, and because of its limitless deceiving
surfaces, breaks, and lines, incomprehensible to the sight of man. Away
to the eastward began a winding, ragged, blue line, looping back upon
itself, and then winding away again, growing wider and bluer. This
line was the San Juan Cañon. Where was Joe Lake at that moment? Had he
embarked yet on the river--did that blue line, so faint, so deceiving,
hold him and the boat? Almost it was impossible to believe. Shefford
followed the blue line all its length, a hundred miles, he fancied, down
toward the west where it joined a dark, purple, shadowy cleft. And this
was the Grand Cañon of the Colorado. Shefford's eye swept along with
that winding mark, farther and farther to the west, round to the left,
until the cleft, growing larger and coming closer, losing its deception,
was seen to be a wild and winding cañon. Still farther to the left, as
he swung in fascinated gaze, it split the wonderful wall--a vast plateau
now with great red peaks and yellow mesas. The cañon was full of purple
smoke. It turned, it gaped, it lost itself and showed again in that
chaos of a million cliffs. And then farther on it became again a cleft,
a purple line, at last to fail entirely in deceiving distance.
Shefford imagined there was no scene in all the world to equal that. The
tranquillity of lesser spaces was not here manifest. Sound, movement,
life, seemed to have no fitness here. Ruin was there and desolation
and decay. The meaning of the ages was flung at him, and a man became
nothing. When he had gazed at the San Juan Cañon he had been appalled
at the nature of Joe Lake's Herculean task. He had lost hope, faith.
The thing was not possible. But when Shefford gazed at that sublime and
majestic wilderness, in which the Grand Cañon was only a dim line, he
strangely lost his terror and something else came to him from across the
shining spaces. If Nas Ta Bega led them safely down to the river, if
Joe Lake met them at the mouth of Nonnezoshe Boco, if they survived the
rapids of that terrible gorge, then Shefford would have to face his soul
and the meaning of this spirit that breathed on the wind.
He urged his mustang to the descent of the slope, and as he went down,
slowly drawing nearer to the other fugitives, his mind alternated
between this strange intimation of faith, this subtle uplift of his
spirit, and the growing gloom and shadow in his love for Fay Larkin. Not
that he loved her less, but more! A possible God hovering near him,
like the Indian's spirit-step on the trail, made his soul the darker for
Fay's crime, and he saw with light, with deeper sadness, with sterner
truth.
More than once the Indian turned on his mustang to look up the slope
and the light flashed from his dark, somber face. Shefford instinctively
looked back himself, and then realized the unconscious motive of the
action. Deep within him there had been a premonition of certain pursuit,
and the Indian's reiterated backward glance had at length brought the
feeling upward. Thereafter, as they descended, Shefford gradually added
to his already wrought emotions a mounting anxiety.
No sign of a trail showed where the base of the slope rolled out to
meet the green plain. The earth was gravelly, with dark patches of heavy
silt, almost like cinders; and round, black rocks, flinty and glassy,
cracked away from the hoofs of the mustangs. There was a level bench a
mile wide, then a ravine, and then an ascent, and after that, rounded
ridge and ravine, one after the other, like huge swells of a monstrous
sea. Indian paint-brush vied in its scarlet hue with the deep magenta
of cactus. There was no sage. Soapweed and meager grass and a bunch of
cactus here and there lent the green to that barren; and it was green
only at a distance. Nas Ta Bega kept on a steady, even trot. The sun
climbed. The wind rose and whipped dust from under the mustangs.
Shefford looked back often, and the farther out in the plain he reached
the higher loomed the plateau they had descended; and as he faced ahead
again the lower sank the red-domed and castled horizon to the fore.
The ravines became deeper, with dry rock bottoms, and the ridge-tops
sharper, with outcroppings of yellow, crumbling ledges. Once across the
central depression of that plain a gradual ascent became evident, and
the round rocks grew clearer in sight, began to rise shine and grow. And
thereafter every slope brought them nearer.
The sun was straight overhead and hot when Nas Ta Bega halted the party
under the first lonely scrub-cedar. They all dismounted to stretch their
limbs, and rest the horses. It was not a talkative group, Lassiter's
comments on the never-ending green plain elicited no response. Jane
Withersteen looked afar with the past in her eyes. Shefford felt Fay's
wistful glance and could not meet it; indeed, he seemed to want to hide
something from her. The Indian bent a falcon gaze on the distant
slope, and Shefford did not like that intent, searching, steadfast
watchfulness. Suddenly Nas Ta Bega stiffened and whipped the halter he
held.
“Ugh!” he exclaimed.
All eyes followed the direction of his dark hand. Puffs of dust rose
from the base of the long slope they had descended; tiny dark specks
moved with the pace of a snail.
“Shadd!” added the Indian.
“I expected it,” said Shefford, darkly, as he rose.
“An' who's Shadd?” drawled Lassiter in his cool, slow speech.
Briefly Shefford explained, and then, looking at Nas Ta Bega, he added:
“The hardest-riding outfit in the country! We can't get away from them.”
Jane Withersteen was silent, but Fay uttered a low cry. Shefford did
not look at either of them. The Indian began swiftly to tighten the
saddle-cinches of his roan, and Shefford did likewise for Nack-yal. Then
Shefford drew his rifle out of the saddle-sheath and Joe Lake's big guns
from the saddle-bag.
“Here, Lassiter, maybe you haven't forgotten how to use these,” he said.
The old gun-man started as if he had seen ghosts. His hands grew
clawlike as he reached for the guns. He threw open the cylinders,
spilled out the shells, snapped back the cylinders. Then he went through
motions too swift for Shefford to follow. But Shefford heard the hammers
falling so swiftly they blended their clicks almost in one sound.
Lassiter reloaded the guns with a speed comparable with the other
actions. A remarkable transformation had come over him. He did not seem
the same man. The mild eyes had changed; the long, shadowy, sloping
lines were tense cords; and there was a cold, ashy shade on his face.
“Twelve years!” he muttered to himself. “I dropped them old guns back
there where I rolled the rock.... Twelve years!”
Shefford realized the twelve years were as if they had never been. And
he would rather have had this old gun-man with him than a dozen ordinary
men.
The Indian spoke rapidly in Navajo, saying that once in the rocks
they were safe. Then, after another look at the distant dust-puffs, he
wheeled his mustang.
It was doubtful if the party could have kept near him had they been
responsible for the gait of their mounts. The fact was that the way the
Indian called to his mustang or some leadership in the one rode drew the
others to a like trot or climb or canter. For a long time Shefford did
not turn round; he knew what to expect. And when he did turn he was
startled at the gain made by the pursuers. But he was encouraged as well
by the looming, red, rounded peaks seemingly now so close. He could see
the dark splits between the sloping curved walls, the pinyon patches in
the amphitheater under the circled walls. That was a wild place they
were approaching, and, once in there, he believed pursuit would be
useless. However, there were miles to go still, and those hard-riding
devils behind made alarming decrease in the intervening distance.
Shefford could see the horses plainly now. How they made the dust fly!
He counted up to six--and then the dust and moving line caused the
others to be indistinguishable.
At last only a long, gently rising slope separated the fugitives from
that labyrinthine network of wildly carved rock. But it was the clear
air that made the distance seem short. Mile after mile the mustangs
climbed, and when they were perhaps half-way across that last slope to
the rocks the first horse of the pursuers mounted to the level behind.
In a few moments the whole band was strung out in sight. Nas Ta Bega
kept his mustang at a steady walk, in spite of the gaining pursuers.
There came a point, however, when the Indian, reaching comparatively
level ground, put his mount to a swinging canter. The other mustangs
broke into the same gait.
It became a race then, with the couple of miles between fugitives and
pursuers only imperceptibly lessened. Nas Ta Bega had saved his mustangs
and Shadd had ridden his to the limit. Shefford kept looking back,
gripping his rifle, hoping it would not come to a fight, yet slowly
losing that reluctance.
Sage began to show on the slope, and other kinds of brush and cedars
straggled everywhere. The great rocks loomed closer, the red color
mixed with yellow, and the slopes lengthening out, not so steep, yet
infinitely longer than they had seemed at a distance.
Shefford ceased to feel the dry wind in his face. They were already in
the lee of the wall. He could see the rock-squirrels scampering to their
holes. The mustangs valiantly held to the gait, and at last the Indian
disappeared between two rounded comers of cliff. The others were close
behind. Shefford wheeled once more. Shadd and his gang were a mile in
the rear, but coming fast, despite winded horses.
Shefford rode around the wall into a widening space thick with cedars.
It ended in a bare slope of smooth rock. Here the Indian dismounted.
When the others came up with him he told them to lead their horses and
follow. Then he began the ascent of the rock.
It was smooth and hard, though not slippery. There was not a crack.
Shefford did not see a broken piece of stone. Nas Ta Bega climbed
straight up for a while, and then wound around a swell, to turn this way
and that, always going up. Shefford began to see similar mounds of rock
all around him, of every shape that could be called a curve. There were
yellow domes far above, and small red domes far below. Ridges ran from
one hill of rock to another. There were no abrupt breaks, but holes
and pits and caves were everywhere, and occasionally, deep down, an
amphitheater green with cedar and pinyon. The Indian appeared to have
a clear idea of where he wanted to go, though there was no vestige of
a trail on those bare slopes. At length Shefford was high enough to see
back upon the plain, but the pursuers were no longer in sight.
Nas Ta Bega led to the top of that wall, only to disclose to his
followers another and a higher wall beyond, with a ridged, bare, wild,
and scalloped depression between. Here footing began to be precarious
for both man and beast. When the ascent of the second wall began it was
necessary to zigzag up, slowly and carefully, taking advantage of every
level bulge or depression. They must have consumed half an hour mounting
this slope to the summit. Once there, Shefford drew a sharp breath with
both backward and forward glances. Shadd and his gang, in single file,
showed dark upon the bare stone ridge behind. And to the fore there
twisted and dropped and curved the most dangerous slopes Shefford had
ever seen. The fugitives had reached the height of stone wall, of the
divide, and many of the drops upon this side were perpendicular and too
steep to see the bottom.
Nas Ta Bega led along the ridge-top and then started down, following the
waves in the rock. He came out upon a round promontory from which there
could not have been any turning of a horse. The long slant leading down
was at an angle Shefford declared impossible for the animals. Yet the
Indian started down. His mustang needed urging, but at last edged upon
the steep descent. Shefford and the others had to hold back and wait. It
was thrilling to see the intelligent mustang. He did not step. He slid
his fore hoofs a few inches at a time and kept directly behind the
Indian. If he fell he would knock Nas Ta Bega off his feet and they
would both roll down together. There was no doubt in Shefford's mind
that the mustang knew this as well as the Indian. Foot by foot they
worked down to a swelling bulge, and here Nas Ta Bega left his mustang
and came back for the pack-horse. It was even more difficult to get this
beast down. Then the Indian called for Lassiter and Jane and Fay to come
down. Shefford began to keep a sharp lookout behind and above, and did
not see how the three fared on the slope, but evidently there was no
mishap. Nas Ta Bega mounted the slope again, and at the moment sight of
Shadd's dark bays silhouetted against the sky caused Shefford to call
out:
“We've got to hurry!”
The Indian led one mustang and called to the others. Shefford stepped
close behind. They went down in single file, inch by inch, foot by foot,
and safely reached the comparative level below.
“Shadd's gang are riding their horses up and down these walls!”
exclaimed Shefford.
“Shore,” replied Lassiter.
Both the women were silent.
Nas Ta Bega led the way swiftly to the right. He rounded a huge dome,
climbed a low, rolling ridge, descended and ascended, and came out upon
the rim of a steep-walled amphitheater. Along the rim was a yard-wide
level, with the chasm to the left and steep slope to the right. There
was no time to flinch at the danger, when an even greater danger menaced
from the rear. Nas Ta Bega led, and his mustang kept at his heels.
One misstep would have plunged the animal to his death. But he was
surefooted and his confidence helped the others. At the apex of the
curve the only course led away from the rim, and here there was no
level. Four of the mustangs slipped and slid down the smooth rock until
they stopped in a shallow depression. It cost time to get them out, to
straighten pack and saddles. Shefford thought he heard a yell in the
rear, but he could not see anything of the gang.
They rounded this precipice only to face a worse one. Shefford's nerve
was sorely tried when he saw steep slants everywhere, all apparently
leading down into chasms, and no place a man, let alone a horse, could
put a foot with safety. Nevertheless the imperturbable Indian never
slacked his pace. Always he appeared to find a way, and he never had to
turn back. His winding course, however, did not now cover much distance
in a straight line, and herein lay the greatest peril. Any moment Shadd
and his men might come within range.
Upon a particularly tedious and dangerous side of rocky hill the
fugitives lost so much time that Shefford grew exceedingly alarmed.
Still, they accomplished it without accident, and their pursuers did not
heave in sight. Perhaps they were having trouble in a bad place.
The afternoon was waning. The red sun hung low above the yellow mesa to
the left, and there was a perceptible shading of light.
At last Nas Ta Bega came to a place that halted him. It did not look
so bad as places they had successfully passed. Yet upon closer study
Shefford did not see how they were to get around the neck of the gully
at their feet. Presently the Indian put the bridle over the head of his
mustang and left him free. He did likewise for two more mustangs, while
Lassiter and Shefford rendered a like service to theirs. Then the Indian
started down, with his mustang following him. The pack-animal came next,
then Fay and Nack-yal, then Lassiter and his mount, with Jane and hers
next, and Shefford last. They followed the Indian, picking their steps
swiftly, looking nowhere except at the stone under their feet. The right
side of the chasm was rimmed, the curve at the head crossed, and then
the real peril of this trap had to be faced. It was a narrow slant of
ledge, doubling back parallel with the course already traversed.
A sharp warning cry from Nas Ta Bega scarcely prepared Shefford for
hoarse yells, and then a rattling rifle-volley from the top of the slope
opposite. Bullets thudded on the cliff, whipped up red dust, and spanged
and droned away.
Fay Larkin screamed and staggered back against the wall. Nack-yal was
hit, and with frightened snort he reared, pawed the air, and came down,
pounding the stone. The mustang behind him went to his knees, sank with
his head over the rim, and, slipping off, plunged into the depths. In an
instant a dull crash came up.
For a moment there was imminent peril for the horses, more in the
yawning hole than in the spanging of badly aimed bullets. Lassiter drew
Jane up a little slope out of the way of the frightened mustangs, and
Shefford, risking his neck, rushed to Fay. She was holding her arm,
which was bleeding. Unheeding the rain of bullets, he half carried,
half dragged her along the slope of the low bluff, where he hid behind
a corner till the Indian drove the mustangs round it. Shefford's swift
fingers were wet and red with the blood from Fay's arm when he had bound
the wound with his scarf. Lassiter had gotten around with Jane and was
calling Shefford to hurry.
It had been Shefford's idea to halt there and fight. But he did not want
to send Fay on alone, so he hurried ahead with her. The Indian had the
horses going fast on a long level, overhung by bulging wall. Lassiter
and Jane were looking back. Shefford, becoming aware of a steep slope
to his left, looked down to see a narrow chasm and great crevices in the
cliffs, with bunches of cedars here and there.
Presently Nas Ta Bega disappeared with the mustangs. He had evidently
turned off to go down behind the split cliffs. Shefford and Fay caught
up with Lassiter and Jane, and, panting, hurrying, looking backward and
then forward, they kept on, as best they could, in the Indian's course.
Shefford made sure they had lost him, when he appeared down to the left.
Then they all ran to catch up with him. They went around the chasm, and
then through one of the narrow cracks to come out upon the rim, among
cedars. Here the Indian waited for them. He pointed down another
long swell of naked stone to a narrow green split which was evidently
different from all these curved pits and holes and abysses, for this
one had straight walls and wound away out of sight. It was the head of a
cañon.
“Nonnezoshe Boco!” said the Indian.
“Nas Ta Bega, go on!” replied Shefford. “When Shadd comes out on that
slope above he can't see you--where you go down. Hurry on with the
horses and women. Lassiter, you go with them. And if Shadd passes me and
comes up with you--do your best.... I'm going to ambush that Piute and
his gang!”
“Shore you've picked out a good place,” replied Lassiter.
In another moment Shefford was alone. He heard the light, soft pat and
slide of the hoofs of the mustangs as they went down. Presently that
sound ceased.
He looked at the red stain on his hands--from the blood of the girl he
loved. And he had to stifle a terrible wrath that shook his frame. In
regard to Shadd's pursuit, it had not been blood that he had feared, but
capture for Fay. He and Nas Ta Bega might have expected a shot if they
resisted, but to wound that unfortunate girl--it made a tiger out of
him. When he had stilled the emotions that weakened and shook him and
reached cold and implacable control of himself, he crawled under the
cedars to the rim and, well hidden, he watched and waited.
Shadd appeared to be slow for the first time since he had been sighted.
With keen eyes Shefford watched the corner where he and the others had
escaped from that murderous volley. But Shadd did not come.
The sun had lost its warmth and was tipping the lofty mesa to his
right. Soon twilight would make travel on those walls more perilous
and darkness would make it impossible. Shadd must hurry or abandon the
pursuit for that day. Shefford found himself grimly hopeful.
Suddenly he heard the click of hoofs. It came, faint yet clear, on the
still air. He glued his sight upon that corner where he expected the
pursuers to appear. More cracks of hoofs pierced his ear, clearer and
sharper this time. Presently he gathered that they could not possibly
come from beyond the corner he was watching. So he looked far to the
left of that place, seeing no one, then far to the right. Out over a
bulge of stone he caught sight of the bobbing head of a horse--then
another--and still another.
He was astounded. Shadd had gone below that place where the attack had
been made and he had come up this steep slope. More horses appeared--to
the number of eight. Shefford easily recognized a low, broad, squat
rider to be Shadd. Assuredly the Piute did not know this country.
Possibly, however, he had feared an ambush. But Shefford grew convinced
that Shadd had not expected an ambush, or at least did not fear it, and
had mistaken the Indian's course. Moreover, if he led his gang a few
rods farther up that slope he would do worse than make a mistake--he
would be facing a double peril.