necessary to head them or to climb in and out. Miles of travel really
meant little progress straight ahead. But Slone kept on. He was hot and
Nagger was hot, and that made hard work easier. Sometimes on the wind
came a low thunder. Was it a storm or an avalanche slipping or falling
water? He could not tell. The sound was significant and haunting.
Of one thing he was sure--that he could not have found his back trail.
But he divined he was never to retrace his steps on this journey. The
stretch of broken plateau before him grew wilder and bolder of outline,
darker in color, weirder in aspect and progress across it grew slower,
more dangerous. There were many places Nagger should not have been put
to--where a slip meant a broken leg. But Slone could not turn back. And
something besides an indomitable spirit kept him going. Again the sound
resembling thunder assailed his ears, louder this time. The plateau
appeared to be ending in a series of great capes or promontories. Slone
feared he would soon come out upon a promontory from which he might see
the impossibility of further travel. He felt relieved down in the
gullies, where he could not see far. He climbed out of one, presently,
from which there extended a narrow ledge with a slant too perilous for
any horse. He stepped out upon that with far less confidence than
Nagger. To the right was a bulge of low wall, and a few feet to the left
a dark precipice. The trail here was faintly outlined, and it was six
inches wide and slanting as well. It seemed endless to Slone, that
ledge. He looked only down at his feet and listened to Nagger's steps.
The big horse trod carefully, but naturally, and he did not slip. That
ledge extended in a long curve, turning slowly away from the precipice,
and ascending a little at the further end. Slone drew a deep breath of
relief when he led Nagger up on level rock.
Suddenly a strange yet familiar sound halted Slone, as if he had been
struck. The wild, shrill, high-pitched, piercing whistle of a stallion!
Nagger neighed a blast in reply and pounded the rock with his iron-shod
hoofs. With a thrill Slone looked ahead.
There, some few hundred yards distant, on a promontory, stood a red
horse.
"It's Wildfire!" breathed Slone, tensely.
He could not believe his sight. He imagined he was dreaming. But as
Nagger stamped and snorted defiance Slone looked with fixed and keen
gaze, and knew that beautiful picture was no lie.
Wildfire was as red as fire. His long mane, wild in the wind, was like a
whipping, black-streaked flame. Silhouetted there against that canyon
background he seemed gigantic, a demon horse, ready to plunge into fiery
depths. He was looking back over his shoulder, his head very high, and
every line of him was instinct with wildness. Again he sent out that
shrill, air-splitting whistle. Slone understood it to be a clarion call
to Nagger. If Nagger had been alone Wildfire would have killed him. The
red stallion was a killer of horses. All over the Utah ranges he had
left the trail of a murderer. Nagger understood this, too, for he
whistled back in rage and terror. It took an iron arm to hold him. Then
Wildfire plunged, apparently down, and vanished from Slone's sight.
Slone hurried onward, to be blocked by a huge crack in the rocky
plateau. This he had to head. And then another and like obstacle checked
his haste to reach that promontory. He was forced to go more slowly.
Wildfire had been close only as to sight. And this was the great canyon
that dwarfed distance and magnified proximity. Climbing down and up,
toiling on, he at last learned patience. He had seen Wildfire at close
range. That was enough. So he plodded on, once more returning to careful
regard of Nagger. It took an hour of work to reach the point where
Wildfire had disappeared.
A promontory indeed it was, overhanging a valley a thousand feet below.
A white torrent of a stream wound through it. There were lines of green
cottonwoods following the winding course. Then Slone saw Wildfire slowly
crossing the flat toward the stream. He had gone down that cliff, which
to Slone looked perpendicular.
Wildfire appeared to be walking lame. Slone, making sure of this,
suffered a pang. Then, when the significance of such lameness dawned
upon him he whooped his wild joy and waved his hat. The red stallion
must have heard, for he looked up. Then he went on again and waded into
the stream, where he drank long. When he started to cross, the swift
current drove him back in several places. The water wreathed white
around him. But evidently it was not deep, and finally he crossed. From
the other side he looked up again at Nagger and Slone, and, going on, he
soon was out of sight in the cottonwoods.
"How to get down!" muttered Slone.
There was a break in the cliff wall, a bare stone slant where horses had
gone down and come up. That was enough for Slone to know. He would have
attempted the descent if he were sure no other horse but Wildfire had
ever gone down there. But Slone's hair began to rise stiff on his head.
A horse like Wildfire, and mountain sheep and Indian ponies, were all
very different from Nagger. The chances were against Nagger.
"Come on, old boy. If I can do it, you can," he said.
Slone had never seen a trail as perilous as this. He was afraid for his
horse. A slip there meant death. The way Nagger trembled in every muscle
showed his feelings. But he never flinched. He would follow Slone
anywhere, providing Slone rode him or led him. And here, as riding was
impossible, Slone went before. If the horse slipped there would be a
double tragedy, for Nagger would knock his master off the cliff. Slone
set his teeth and stepped down. He did not let Nagger see his fear. He
was taking the greatest risk he had ever run.
The break in the wall led to a ledge, and the ledge dropped from step to
step, and these had bare, slippery slants between. Nagger was splendid
on a bad trail. He had methods peculiar to his huge build and great
weight. He crashed down over the stone steps, both front hoofs at once.
The slants he slid down on his haunches with his forelegs stiff and the
iron shoes scraping. He snorted and heaved and grew wet with sweat. He
tossed his head at some of the places. But he never hesitated and it was
impossible for him to go slowly. Whenever Slone came to corrugated
stretches in the trail he felt grateful. But these were few. The rock
was like smooth red iron. Slone had never seen such hard rock. It took
him long to realize that it was marble. His heart seemed a tense,
painful knot in his breast, as if it could not beat, holding back in the
strained suspense. But Nagger never jerked on the bridle. He never
faltered. Many times he slipped, often with both front feet, but never
with all four feet. So he did not fall. And the red wall began to loom
above Sloan. Then suddenly he seemed brought to a point where it was
impossible to descend. It was a round bulge, slanting fearfully, with
only a few rough surfaces to hold a foot. Wildfire had left a broad,
clear-swept mark at that place, and red hairs on some of the sharp
points. He had slid down. Below was an offset that fortunately prevented
further sliding. Slone started to walk down this place, but when Nagger
began to slide Slone had to let go the bridle and jump. Both he and the
horse landed safely. Luck was with them. And they went on, down and
down, to reach the base of the great wall, scraped and exhausted, wet
with sweat, but unhurt. As Slone gazed upward he felt the impossibility
of believing what he knew to be true. He hugged and petted the horse.
Then he led on to the roaring stream.
It was green water white with foam. Slone waded in and found the water
cool and shallow and very swift. He had to hold to Nagger to keep from
being swept downstream. They crossed in safety. There in the sand
showed Wildfire's tracks. And here were signs of another Indian camp,
half a year old.
The shade of the cotton woods was pleasant. Slone found this valley
oppressively hot. There was no wind and the sand blistered his feet
through his boots. Wildfire held to the Indian trail that had guided him
down into this wilderness of worn rock. And that trail crossed the
stream at every turn of the twisting, narrow valley. Slone enjoyed
getting into the water. He hung his gun over the pommel and let the
water roll him. A dozen times he and Nagger forded the rushing torrent.
Then they came to a boxlike closing of the valley to canyon walls, and
here the trail evidently followed the stream bed. There was no other
way. Slone waded in, and stumbled, rolled, and floated ahead of the
sturdy horse. Nagger was wet to his breast, but he did not fall. This
gulch seemed full of a hollow rushing roar. It opened out into a wide
valley. And Wildfire's tracks took to the left side and began to climb
the slope.
Here the traveling was good, considering what had been passed. Once up
out of the valley floor Slone saw Wildfire far ahead, high on the slope.
He did not appear to be limping, but he was not going fast. Slone
watched as he climbed. What and where would be the end of this chase?
Sometimes Wildfire was plain in his sight for a moment, but usually he
was hidden by rocks. The slope was one great talus, a jumble of
weathered rock, fallen from what appeared a mountain of red and yellow
wall. Here the heat of the sun fell upon him like fire. The rocks were
so hot Slone could not touch them with bare hand. The close of the
afternoon was approaching, and this slope was interminably long. Still,
it was not steep, and the trail was good.
At last from the height of slope Wildfire appeared, looking back and
down. Then he was gone. Slone plodded upward. Long before he reached
that summit he heard the dull rumble of the river. It grew to be a roar,
yet it seemed distant. Would the great desert river stop Wildfire in his
flight? Slone doubted it. He surmounted the ridge, to find the canyon
opening in a tremendous gap, and to see down, far down, a glittering,
sun-blasted slope merging into a deep, black gulch where a red river
swept and chafed and roared.
Somehow the river was what he had expected to see. A force that had cut
and ground this canyon could have been nothing but a river like that. The
trail led down, and Slone had no doubt that it crossed the river and led
up out of the canyon. He wanted to stay there and gaze endlessly and
listen. At length he began the descent. As he proceeded it seemed that
the roar of the river lessened. He could not understand why this was so.
It took half an hour to reach the last level, a ghastly, black, and
iron-ribbed canyon bed, with the river splitting it. He had not had a
glimpse of Wildfire on this side of the divide, but he found his tracks,
and they led down off the last level, through a notch in the black bank
of marble to a sand bar and the river.
Wildfire had walked straight off the sand into the water. Slone studied
the river and shore. The water ran slow, heavily, in sluggish eddies.
From far up the canyon came the roar of a rapid, and from below the roar
of another, heavier and closer. The river appeared tremendous, in ways
Slone felt rather than realized, yet it was not swift. Studying the
black, rough wall of rock above him, he saw marks where the river had
been sixty feet higher than where he stood on the sand. It was low,
then. How lucky for him that he had gotten there before flood season! He
believed Wildfire had crossed easily, and he knew Nagger could make it.
Then he piled and tied his supplies and weapons high on the saddle, to
keep them dry, and looked for a place to take to the water.
Wildfire had sunk deep before reaching the edge. Manifestly he had
lunged the last few feet. Slone found a better place, and waded in,
urging Nagger. The big horse plunged, almost going under, and began to
swim. Slone kept upstream beside him. He found, presently, that the
water was thick and made him tired, so it was necessary to grasp a
stirrup and be towed. The river appeared only a few hundred feet wide,
but probably it was wider than it looked. Nagger labored heavily near
the opposite shore; still, he landed safely upon a rocky bank. There
were patches of sand in which Wildfire's tracks showed so fresh that
the water had not yet dried out of them.
Slone rested his horse before attempting to climb out of that split in
the rock. However, Wildfire had found an easy ascent. On this side of
the canyon the bare rock did not predominate. A clear trail led up a
dusty, gravelly slope, upon which scant greasewood and cactus appeared.
Half an hour's climbing brought Slone to where he could see that he was
entering a vast valley, sloping up and narrowing to a notch in the dark
cliffs, above which towered the great red wall and about that the slopes
of cedar and the yellow rim rock.
And scarcely a mile distant, bright in the westering sunlight, shone the
red stallion, moving slowly.
Slone pressed on steadily. Just before dark he came to an ideal spot to
camp. The valley had closed up, so that the lofty walls cast shadows
that met. A clump of cottonwoods surrounding a spring, abundance of rich
grass, willows and flowers lining the banks, formed an oasis in the bare
valley. Slone was tired out from the day of ceaseless toil down and up,
and he could scarcely keep his eyes open. But he tried to stay awake.
The dead silence of the valley, the dry fragrance, the dreaming walls,
the advent of night low down, when up on the ramparts the last red rays
of the sun lingered, the strange loneliness--these were sweet and
comforting to him.
And that night's sleep was as a moment. He opened his eyes to see the
crags and towers and peaks and domes, and the lofty walls of that vast,
broken chaos of canyons across the river. They were now emerging from the
misty gray of dawn, growing pink and lilac and purple under the rising
sun.
He arose and set about his few tasks, which, being soon finished,
allowed him an early start.
Wildfire had grazed along no more than a mile in the lead. Slone looked
eagerly up the narrowing canyon, but he was not rewarded by a sight of
the stallion. As he progressed up a gradually ascending trail he became
aware of the fact that the notch he had long looked up to was where the
great red walls closed in and almost met. And the trail zigzagged up
this narrow vent, so steep that only a few steps could be taken without
rest. Slone toiled up for an hour--an age--till he was wet, burning,
choked, with a great weight on his chest. Yet still he was only halfway
up that awful break between the walls. Sometimes he could have tossed a
stone down upon a part of the trail, only a few rods below, yet many,
many weary steps of actual toil. As he got farther up the notch widened.
What had been scarcely visible from the valley below was now colossal in
actual dimensions. The trail was like a twisted mile of thread between
two bulging mountain walls leaning their ledges and fronts over this
tilted pass.
Slone rested often. Nagger appreciated this and heaved gratefully at
every halt. In this monotonous toil Slone forgot the zest of his
pursuit. And when Nagger suddenly snorted in fright Slone was not
prepared for what he saw.
Above him ran a low, red wall, around which evidently the trail led. At
the curve, which was a promontory, scarcely a hundred feet in an air
line above him, he saw something red moving, bobbing, coming out into
view. It was a horse.
Wildfire--no farther away than the length of three lassos!
There he stood looking down. He fulfilled all of Slone's dreams. Only he
was bigger. But he was so magnificently proportioned that he did not
seem heavy. His coat was shaggy and red. It was not glossy. The color
was what made him shine. His mane was like a crest, mounting, then
falling low. Slone had never seen so much muscle on a horse. Yet his
outline was graceful, beautiful. The head was indeed that of the wildest
of all wild creatures--a stallion born wild--and it was beautiful,
savage, splendid, everything but noble. Slone thought that if a horse
could express hate, surely Wildfire did then. It was certain that he did
express curiosity and fury.
Slone shook a gantleted fist at the stallion, as if the horse were
human. That was a natural action for a rider of his kind. Wildfire
turned away, showed bright against the dark background, and then
disappeared.
III
That was the last Slone saw of Wildfire for three days.
It took all of this day to climb out of the canyon. The second was a slow
march of thirty miles into a scrub cedar and pinyon forest, through which
the great red and yellow walls of the canyon could be seen. That night
Slone found a water hole in a rocky pocket and a little grass for
Nagger. The third day's travel consisted of forty miles or more through
level pine forest, dry and odorous, but lacking the freshness and beauty
of the forest on the north side of the canyon. On this south side a
strange feature was that all the water, when there was any, ran away
from the rim. Slone camped this night at a muddy pond in the woods,
where Wildfire's tracks showed plainly.
On the following day Slone rode out of the forest into a country of
scanty cedars, bleached and stunted, and out of this to the edge of a
plateau, from which the shimmering desert flung its vast and desolate
distances, forbidding and menacing. This was not the desert upland
country of Utah, but a naked and bony world of colored rock and sand--a
painted desert of heat and wind and flying sand and waterless wastes and
barren ranges. But it did not daunt Slone. For far down on the bare,
billowing ridges moved a red speck, at a snail's pace, a slowly moving
dot of color which was Wildfire.
* * * * *
On open ground like this, Nagger, carrying two hundred and fifty pounds,
showed his wonderful quality. He did not mind the heat nor the sand nor
the glare nor the distance nor his burden. He did not tire. He was an
engine of tremendous power.
Slone gained upon Wildfire, and toward evening of that day he reached to
within half a mile of the stallion. And he chose to keep that far
behind. That night he camped where there was dry grass, but no water.
Next day he followed Wildfire down and down, over the endless swell of
rolling red ridges, bare of all but bleached white grass and meager
greasewood, always descending in the face of that painted desert of bold
and ragged steppes. Slone made fifty miles that day, and gained the
valley bed, where a slender stream ran thin and spread over a wide sandy
bottom. It was salty water, but it was welcome to both man and beast.
The following day he crossed, and the tracks of Wildfire were still wet
on the sand bars. The stallion was slowing down. Slone saw him, limping
along, not far in advance. There was a ten-mile stretch of level ground,
blown hard as rock, from which the sustenance had been bleached, for not
a spear of grass grew there. And following that was a tortuous passage
through a weird region of clay dunes, blue and violet and heliotrope and
lavender, all worn smooth by rain and wind. Wildfire favored the soft
ground now. He had deviated from his straight course. And he was partial
to washes and dips in the earth where water might have lodged. And he
was not now scornful of a green-scummed water hole with its white margin
of alkali. That night Slone made camp with Wildfire in plain sight. The
stallion stopped when his pursuers stopped. And he began to graze on the
same stretch with Nagger. How strange this seemed to Slone!
Here at this camp was evidence of Indians. Wildfire had swung round to
the north in his course. Like any pursued wild animal, he had begun to
circle. And he had pointed his nose toward the Utah he had left.
Next morning Wildfire was not in sight, but he had left his tracks in
the sand. Slone trailed him with Nagger at a trot. Toward the head of
this sandy flat Slone came upon old cornfields, and a broken dam where
the water had been stored, and well-defined trails leading away to the
right. Somewhere over there in the desert lived Indians. At this point
Wildfire abandoned the trail he had followed for many days and cut out
more to the north. It took all the morning hours to climb three great
steppes and benches that led up to the summit of a mesa, vast in extent.
It turned out to be a sandy waste. The wind rose and everywhere were
moving sheets of sand, and in the distance circular yellow dust devils,
rising high like water spouts, and back down in the sun-scorched valley
a sandstorm moved along majestically, burying the desert in its yellow
pall.
Then two more days of sand and another day of a slowly rising ground
growing from bare to gray and gray to green, and then to the purple of
sage and cedar--these three grinding days were toiled out with only one
water hole.
And Wildfire was lame and in distress and Nagger was growing gaunt and
showing strain; and Slone, haggard and black and worn, plodded miles and
miles on foot to save his horse.
Slone felt that it would be futile to put the chase to a test of speed.
Nagger could never head that stallion. Slone meant to go on and on,
always pushing Wildfire, keeping him tired, wearied, and worrying him,
till a section of the country was reached where he could drive Wildfire
into some kind of a natural trap. The pursuit seemed endless. Wildfire
kept to open country where he could not be surprised.
There came a morning when Slone climbed to a cedared plateau that rose
for a whole day's travel, and then split into a labyrinthine maze of
canyons. There were trees, grass, water. It was a high country, cool and
wild, like the uplands he had left. For days he camped on Wildfire's
trail, always relentlessly driving him, always watching for the trap he
hoped to find. And the red stallion spent much of this time of flight in
looking backward. Whenever Slone came in sight of him he had his head
over his shoulder, watching. And on the soft ground of these canyons he
had begun to recover from his lameness. But this did not worry Slone.
Sooner or later Wildfire would go down into a high-walled wash, from
which there would be no outlet; or he would wander into a box canyon; or
he would climb out on a mesa with no place to descend, unless he passed
Slone; or he would get cornered on a soft, steep slope where his hoofs
would sink deep and make him slow. The nature of the desert had changed.
Slone had entered a wonderful region, the like of which he had not
seen--a high plateau criss-crossed in every direction by narrow canyons
with red walls a thousand feet high.
And one of the strange turning canyons opened into a vast valley of
monuments.
The plateau had weathered and washed away, leaving huge sections of
stone walls, all standing isolated, different in size and shape, but all
clean-cut, bold, with straight lines. They stood up everywhere,
monumental, towering, many-colored, lending a singular and beautiful
aspect to the great green and gray valley, billowing away to the north,
where dim, broken battlements mounted to the clouds.
The only living thing in Slone's sight was Wildfire. He shone red down
on the green slope.
Slone's heart swelled. This was the setting for that grand horse--a
perfect wild range. But also it seemed the last place where there might
be any chance to trap the stallion. Still that did not alter Slone's
purpose, though it lost to him the joy of former hopes. He rode down the
slope, out upon the billowing floor of the valley. Wildfire looked back
to see his pursuers, and then the solemn stillness broke to a wild,
piercing whistle.
* * * * *
Day after day, camping where night found him, Slone followed the
stallion, never losing sight of him till darkness had fallen. The valley
was immense and the monuments miles apart. But they always seemed close
together and near him. The air magnified everything. Slone lost track of
time. The strange, solemn, lonely days and the silent, lonely nights,
and the endless pursuit, and the wild, weird valley--these completed the
work of years on Slone and he became satisfied, unthinking, almost
savage.