garments hung in tatters; his boots were ripped and soleless. Long since
his flour had been used up, and all his supplies except the salt. He
lived on the meat of rabbits, but they were scarce, and the time came
when there were none. Some days he did not eat. Hunger did not make him
suffer. He killed a desert bird now and then, and once a wildcat
crossing the valley. Eventually he felt his strength diminishing, and
then he took to digging out the pack rats and cooking them. But these,
too, were scarce. At length starvation faced Slone. But he knew he would
not starve. Many times he had been within rifle shot of Wildfire. And
the grim, forbidding thought grew upon him that he must kill the
stallion. The thought seemed involuntary, but his mind rejected it.
Nevertheless, he knew that if he could not catch the stallion he would
kill him. That had been the end of many a desperate rider's pursuit of a
coveted horse.
While Slone kept on his merciless pursuit, never letting Wildfire rest
by day, time went on just as relentlessly. Spring gave way to early
summer. The hot sun bleached the grass; water holes failed out in the
valley, and water could be found only in the canyons; and the dry winds
began to blow the sand. It was a sandy valley, green and gray only at a
distance, and out toward the north there were no monuments, and the slow
heave of sand lifted toward the dim walls.
Wildfire worked away from this open valley, back to the south end, where
the great monuments loomed, and still farther back, where they grew
closer, till at length some of them were joined by weathered ridges to
the walls of the surrounding plateau. For all that Slone could see,
Wildfire was in perfect condition. But Nagger was not the horse he had
been. Slone realized that in one way or another the pursuit was
narrowing down to the end.
He found a water hole at the head of a wash in a split in the walls, and
here he let Nagger rest and graze one whole day--the first day for a
long time that he had not kept the red stallion in sight. That day was
marked by the good fortune of killing a rabbit, and while eating it his
gloomy, fixed mind admitted that he was starving. He dreaded the next
sunrise. But he could not hold it back. There, behind the dark
monuments, standing sentinel-like, the sky lightened and reddened and
burnt into gold and pink, till out of the golden glare the sun rose
glorious. And Slone, facing the league-long shadows of the monuments,
rode out again into the silent, solemn day, on his hopeless quest.
For a change Wildfire had climbed high up a slope of talus, through a
narrow pass, rounded over with drifting sand. And Slone gazed down into
a huge amphitheater full of monuments, like all that strange country. A
basin three miles across lay beneath him. Walls and weathered slants of
rock and steep slopes of reddish-yellow sand inclosed this oval
depression. The floor was white, and it seemed to move gently or radiate
with heat waves. Studying it, Slone made out that the motion was caused
by wind in long bleached grass. He had crossed small areas of this grass
in different parts of the region.
Wildfire's tracks led down into this basin, and presently Slone, by
straining his eyes, made out the red spot that was the stallion.
"He's lookin' to quit the country," soliloquized Slone, as he surveyed
the scene.
With keen, slow gaze Slone studied the lay of wall and slope, and when
he had circled the huge depression he made sure that Wildfire could not
get out except by the narrow pass through which he had gone in. Slone
sat astride Nagger in the mouth of this pass--a wash a few yards wide,
walled by broken, rough rock on one side and an insurmountable slope on
the other.
"If this hole was only little, now," sighed Slone, as he gazed at the
sweeping, shimmering oval floor, "I might have a chance. But down
there--we couldn't get near him."
There was no water in that dry bowl. Slone reflected on the uselessness
of keeping Wildfire down there, because Nagger could not go without
water as long as Wildfire. For the first time Slone hesitated. It seemed
merciless to Nagger to drive him down into this hot, windy hole. The
wind blew from the west, and it swooped up the slope, hot, with the odor
of dry, dead grass.
But that hot wind stirred Slone with an idea, and suddenly he was tense,
excited, glowing, yet grim and hard.
"Wildfire, I'll make you run with your namesake in that high grass,"
called Slone. The speech was full of bitter failure, of regret, of the
hardness of a rider who could not give up the horse to freedom.
Slone meant to ride down there and fire the long grass. In that wind
there would indeed be wildfire to race with the red stallion. It would
perhaps mean his death; at least it would chase him out of that hole,
where to follow him would be useless.
"I'd make you hump now to get away if I could get behind you," muttered
Slone. He saw that if he could fire the grass on the other side the wind
of flame would drive Wildfire straight toward him. The slopes and walls
narrowed up to the pass, but high grass grew to within a few rods of
where Slone stood. But it seemed impossible to get behind Wildfire.
"At night--then--I could get round him," said Slone, thinking hard and
narrowing his gaze to scan the circle of wall and slope. "Why not? . . .
No wind at night. That grass would burn slow till mornin'--till the wind
came up--an' it's been west for days."
Suddenly Slone began to pound the patient Nagger and to cry out to him
in wild exultance.
"Old horse, we've got him! We've got him! We'll put a rope on him before
this time to-morrow!"
Slone yielded to his strange, wild joy, but it did not last long, soon
succeeding to sober, keen thought. He rode down into the bowl a mile,
making absolutely certain that Wildfire could not climb out on that
side. The far end, beyond the monuments, was a sheer wall of rock. Then
he crossed to the left side. Here the sandy slope was almost too steep
for even him to go up. And there was grass that would burn. He returned
to the pass assured that Wildfire had at last fallen into a trap the
like Slone had never dreamed of. The great horse was doomed to run into
living flame or the whirling noose of a lasso.
Then Slone reflected. Nagger had that very morning had his fill of good
water--the first really satisfying drink for days. If he was rested that
day, on the morrow he would be fit for the grueling work possibly in
store for him. Slone unsaddled the horse and turned him loose, and with
a snort he made down the gentle slope for the grass. Then Slone carried
his saddle to a shady spot afforded by a slab of rock and a dwarf cedar,
and here he composed himself to rest and watch and think and wait.
Wildfire was plainly in sight no more than two miles away. Gradually he
was grazing along toward the monuments and the far end of the great
basin. Slone believed, because the place was so large, that Wildfire
thought there was a way out on the other side or over the slopes or
through the walls. Never before had the farsighted stallion made a
mistake. Slone suddenly felt the keen, stabbing fear of an outlet
somewhere. But it left him quickly. He had studied those slopes and
walls. Wildfire could not get out, except by the pass he had entered,
unless he could fly.
Slone lay in the shade, his head propped on his saddle, and while gazing
down into the shimmering hollow he began to plan. He calculated that he
must be able to carry fire swiftly across the far end of the basin, so
that he would not be absent long from the mouth of the pass. Fire was
always a difficult matter, since he must depend only on flint and steel.
He decided to wait till dark, build a fire with dead cedar sticks, and
carry a bundle of them with burning ends. He felt assured that the wind
caused by riding would keep them burning. After he had lighted the grass
all he had to do was to hurry back to his station and there await
developments.
The day passed slowly, and it was hot. The heat-waves rose in dark,
wavering lines and veils from the valley. The wind blew almost a gale.
Thin, curling sheets of sand blew up over the crests of the slopes, and
the sound it made was a soft, silken rustling, very low. The sky was a
steely blue above and copper close over the distant walls.
That afternoon, toward the close, Slone ate the last of the meat. At
sunset the wind died away and the air cooled. There was a strip of red
along the wall of rock and on the tips of the monuments, and it lingered
there for long, a strange, bright crown. Nagger was not far away, but
Wildfire had disappeared, probably behind one of the monuments.
When twilight fell Slone went down after Nagger and, returning with him,
put on bridle and saddle. Then he began to search for suitable sticks of
wood. Farther back in the pass he found stunted dead cedars, and from
these secured enough for his purpose. He kindled a fire and burned the
ends of the sticks into red embers. Making a bundle of these, he put
them under his arm, the dull, glowing ends backward, and then mounted
his horse.
It was just about dark when he faced down into the valley. When he
reached level ground he kept to the edge of the left slope and put
Nagger to a good trot. The grass and brush were scant here, and the
color of the sand was light, so he had no difficulty in traveling. From
time to time his horse went through grass, and its dry, crackling
rustle, showing how it would burn, was music to Slone. Gradually the
monuments began to loom up, bold and black against the blue sky, with
stars seemingly hanging close over them. Slone had calculated that the
basin was smaller than it really was, in both length and breadth. This
worried him. Wildfire might see or hear or scent him, and make a break
back to the pass and thus escape. Slone was glad when the huge, dark
monuments were indistinguishable from the black, frowning wall. He had
to go slower here, because of the darkness. But at last he reached the
slow rise of jumbled rock that evidently marked the extent of weathering
on that side. Here he turned to the right and rode out into the valley.
The floor was level and thickly overgrown with long, dead grass and dead
greasewood, as dry as tinder. It was easy to account for the dryness;
neither snow nor rain had visited that valley for many months. Slone
whipped one of the sticks in the wind and soon had the smouldering end
red and showering sparks. Then he dropped the stick in the grass, with
curious intent and a strange feeling of regret.
Instantly the grass blazed with a little sputtering roar. Nagger
snorted. "Wildfire!" exclaimed Slone. That word was a favorite one with
riders, and now Slone used it both to call out his menace to the
stallion and to express his feeling for that blaze, already running
wild.
Without looking back, Slone rode across the valley, dropping a glowing
stick every quarter of a mile. When he reached the other side there were
a dozen fires behind him, burning slowly, with white smoke rising
lazily. Then he loped Nagger along the side back to the sandy ascent,
and on up to the mouth of the pass. There he searched for tracks.
Wildfire had not gone out, and Slone experienced relief and exultation.
He took up a position in the middle of the narrowest part of the pass,
and there, with Nagger ready for anything, he once more composed himself
to watch and wait.
Far across the darkness of the valley, low down, twelve lines of fire,
widely separated, crept toward one another. They appeared thin and slow,
with only an occasional leaping flame. And some of the black spaces must
have been monuments, blotting out the creeping snail lines of red. Slone
watched, strangely fascinated.
"What do you think of that?" he said, aloud, and he meant his query for
Wildfire.
As he watched the lines perceptibly lengthened and brightened and pale
shadows of smoke began to appear. Over at the left of the valley the two
brightest fires, the first he had started, crept closer and closer
together. They seemed long in covering distance. But not a breath of
wind stirred, and besides they really might move swiftly, without
looking so to Slone. When the two lines met a sudden and larger blaze
rose.
"Ah!" said the rider, and then he watched the other lines creeping
together. How slowly fire moved, he thought. The red stallion would have
every chance to run between those lines, if he dared. But a wild horse
fears nothing like fire. This one would not run the gantlet of flames.
Nevertheless Slone felt more and more relieved as the lines closed. The
hours of the night dragged past until at length one long, continuous
line of fire spread level across the valley, its bright, red line broken
only where the monuments of stone were silhouetted against it.
The darkness of the valley changed. The light of the moon changed. The
radiance of the stars changed. Either the line of fire was finding
denser fuel to consume or it was growing appreciably closer, for the
flames began to grow, to leap, and to flare.
Slone strained his ears for the thud of hoofs on sand.
The time seemed endless in its futility of results, but fleeting after
it had passed; and he could tell how the hours fled by the
ever-recurring need to replenish the little fire he kept burning in the
pass.
A broad belt of valley grew bright in the light, and behind it loomed
the monuments, weird and dark, with columns of yellow and white smoke
wreathing them.
Suddenly Slone's sensitive ear vibrated to a thrilling sound. He leaned
down to place his ear to the sand. Rapid, rhythmic beat of hoofs made
him leap to his feet, reaching for his lasso with right hand and a gun
with his left.
Nagger lifted his head, sniffed the air, and snorted. Slone peered into
the black belt of gloom that lay below him. It would be hard to see a
horse there, unless he got high enough to be silhouetted against that
line of fire now flaring to the sky. But he heard the beat of hoofs,
swift, sharp, louder--louder. The night shadows were deceptive. That
wonderful light confused him, made the place unreal. Was he dreaming? Or
had the long chase and his privations unhinged his mind? He reached for
Nagger. No! The big black was real, alive, quivering, pounding the sand.
He scented an enemy.
Once more Slone peered down into the void or what seemed a void. But it,
too, had changed, lightened. The whole valley was brightening. Great
palls of curling smoke rose white and yellow, to turn back as the
monuments met their crests, and then to roll upward, blotting out the
stars. It was such a light as he had never seen, except in dreams. Pale
moonlight and dimmed starlight and wan dawn all vague and strange and
shadowy under the wild and vivid light of burning grass.
In the pale path before Slone, that fanlike slope of sand which opened
down into the valley, appeared a swiftly moving black object, like a
fleeing phantom. It was a phantom horse. Slone felt that his eyes,
deceived by his mind, saw racing images. Many a wild chase he had lived
in dreams on some far desert. But what was that beating in his
ears--sharp, swift, even, rhythmic? Never had his ears played him false.
Never had he heard things in his dreams. That running object was a horse
and he was coming like the wind. Slone felt something grip his heart.
All the time and endurance and pain and thirst and suspense and longing
and hopelessness--the agony of the whole endless chase--closed tight on
his heart in that instant.
The running horse halted just in the belt of light cast by the burning
grass. There he stood sharply defined, clear as a cameo, not a hundred
paces from Slone. It was Wildfire.
Slone uttered an involuntary cry. Thrill on thrill shot through him.
Delight and hope and fear and despair claimed him in swift, successive
flashes. And then again the ruling passion of a rider held him--the
sheer glory of a grand and unattainable horse. For Slone gave up
Wildfire in that splendid moment. How had he ever dared to believe he
could capture that wild stallion? Slone looked and looked, filling his
mind, regretting nothing, sure that the moment was reward for all he had
endured.
The weird lights magnified Wildfire and showed him clearly. He seemed
gigantic. He shone black against the fire. His head was high, his mane
flying. Behind him the fire flared and the valley-wide column of smoke
rolled majestically upward, and the great monuments seemed to retreat
darkly and mysteriously as the flames advanced beyond them. It was a
beautiful, unearthly spectacle, with its silence the strangest feature.
But suddenly Wildfire broke that silence with a whistle which to Slone's
overstrained faculties seemed a blast as piercing as the splitting sound
of lightning. And with the whistle Wildfire plunged up toward the pass.
Slone yelled at the top of his lungs and fired his gun before he could
terrorize the stallion and drive him back down the slope. Soon Wildfire
became again a running black object, and then he disappeared.
The great line of fire had gotten beyond the monuments and now stretched
unbroken across the valley from wall to slope. Wildfire could never
pierce that line of flames. And now Slone saw, in the paling sky to the
east, that dawn was at hand.
IV
Slone looked grimly glad when simultaneously with the first red flash of
sunrise a breeze fanned his cheek. All that was needed now was a west
wind. And here came the assurance of it.
The valley appeared hazy and smoky, with slow, rolling clouds low down
where the line of fire moved. The coming of daylight paled the blaze of
the grass, though here and there Slone caught flickering glimpses of
dull red flame. The wild stallion kept to the center of the valley,
restlessly facing this way and that, but never toward the smoke. Slone
made sure that Wildfire gradually gave ground as the line of smoke
slowly worked toward him.
Every moment the breeze freshened, grew steadier and stronger, until
Slone saw that it began to clear the valley of the low-hanging smoke.
There came a time when once more the blazing line extended across from
slope to slope.
Wildfire was cornered, trapped. Many times Slone nervously uncoiled and
recoiled his lasso. Presently the great chance of his life would
come--the hardest and most important throw he would ever have with a
rope. He did not miss often, but then he missed sometimes, and here he
must be swift and sure. It annoyed him that his hands perspired and
trembled and that something weighty seemed to obstruct his breathing. He
muttered that he was pretty much worn out, not in the best of condition
for a hard fight with a wild horse. Still he would capture Wildfire; his
mind was unalterably set there. He anticipated that the stallion would
make a final and desperate rush past him; and he had his plan of action
all outlined. What worried him was the possibility of Wildfire's doing
some unforeseen feat at the very last. Slone was prepared for hours of
strained watching, and then a desperate effort, and then a shock that
might kill Wildfire and cripple Nagger, or a long race and fight.
But he soon discovered that he was wrong about the long watch and wait.
The wind had grown strong and was driving the fire swiftly. The flames,
fanned by the breeze, leaped to a formidable barrier. In less than an
hour, though the time seemed only a few moments to the excited Slone,
Wildfire had been driven down toward the narrowing neck of the valley,
and he had begun to run, to and fro, back and forth. Any moment, then,
Slone expected him to grow terrorized and to come tearing up toward the
pass.
Wildfire showed evidence of terror, but he did not attempt to make the
pass. Instead he went at the right-hand slope of the valley and began to
climb. The slope was steep and soft, yet the stallion climbed up and up.
The dust flew in clouds; the gravel rolled down, and the sand followed
in long streams. Wildfire showed his keenness by zigzagging up the
slope.
"Go ahead, you red devil!" yelled Slone. He was much elated. In that
soft bank Wildfire would tire out while not hurting himself.
Slone watched the stallion in admiration and pity and exultation.
Wildfire did not make much headway, for he slipped back almost as much
as he gained. He attempted one place after another where he failed.
There was a bank of clay, some few feet high, and he could not round it
at either end or surmount it in the middle. Finally he literally pawed
and cut a path, much as if he were digging in the sand for water. When
he got over that he was not much better off. The slope above was endless
and grew steeper, more difficult toward the top. Slone knew absolutely
that no horse could climb over it. He grew apprehensive, however, for
Wildfire might stick up there on the slope until the line of fire
passed. The horse apparently shunned any near proximity to the fire, and
performed prodigious efforts to escape.
"He'll be ridin' an avalanche pretty soon," muttered Slone.
Long sheets of sand and gravel slid down to spill thinly over the low
bank. Wildfire, now sinking to his knees, worked steadily upward till he
had reached a point halfway up the slope, at the head of a long, yellow
bank of treacherous-looking sand. Here he was halted by a low bulge,
which he might have surmounted had his feet been free. But he stood deep
in the sand. For the first time he looked down at the sweeping fire, and
then at Slone.
Suddenly the bank of sand began to slide with him. He snorted in fright.
The avalanche started slowly and was evidently no mere surface slide. It
was deep. It stopped--then started again--and again stopped. Wildfire
appeared to be sinking deeper and deeper. His struggles only embedded
him more firmly. Then the bank of sand, with an ominous, low roar, began
to move once more. This time it slipped swiftly. The dust rose in a
cloud, almost obscuring the horse. Long streams of gravel rattled down,
and waterfalls of sand waved over the steppes of the slope.
Just as suddenly the avalanche stopped again. Slone saw, from the great
oval hole it had left above, that it was indeed deep. That was the
reason it did not slide readily. When the dust cleared away Slone saw
the stallion, sunk to his flanks in the sand, utterly helpless.
With a wild whoop Slone leaped off Nagger, and, a lasso in each hand, he
ran down the long bank. The fire was perhaps a quarter of a mile
distant, and, since the grass was thinning out, it was not coming so
fast as it had been. The position of the stallion was halfway between
the fire and Slone, and a hundred yards up the slope.
Like a madman Slone climbed up through the dragging, loose sand. He was
beside himself with a fury of excitement. He fancied his eyes were
failing him, that it was not possible the great horse really was up
there, helpless in the sand. Yet every huge stride Slone took brought
him closer to a fact he could not deny. In his eagerness he slipped, and
fell, and crawled, and leaped, until he reached the slide which held
Wildfire prisoner.
The stallion might have been fast in quicksand, up to his body, for all
the movement he could make. He could move only his head. He held that
up, his eyes wild, showing the whites, his foaming mouth wide open, his
teeth gleaming. A sound like a scream rent the air. Terrible fear and
hate were expressed in that piercing neigh. And shaggy, wet, dusty red,
with all of brute savageness in the look and action of his head, he
appeared hideous.
As Slone leaped within roping distance the avalanche slipped a foot or
two, halted, slipped once more, and slowly started again with that low
roar. He did not care whether it slipped or stopped. Like a wolf he
leaped closer, whirling his rope. The loop hissed round his head and
whistled as he flung it. And when fiercely he jerked back on the rope,
the noose closed tight round Wildfire's neck.
"I--got--a rope--on him!" cried Slone, in hoarse pants.
He stared, unbelieving. It was unreal, that sight--unreal like the slow,
grinding movement of the avalanche under him. Wildfire's head seemed a
demon head of hate. It reached out, mouth agape, to bite, to rend. That
horrible scream could not be the scream of a horse.
Slone was a wild-horse hunter, a rider, and when that second of
incredulity flashed by, then came the moment of triumph. No moment could
ever equal that one, when he realized he stood there with a rope around
that grand stallion's neck. All the days and the miles and the toil and
the endurance and the hopelessness and the hunger were paid for in that
moment. His heart seemed too large for his breast.
"I tracked--you!" he cried, savagely. "I stayed--with you! An' I got a
rope--on you! An'--I'll ride you--you red devil!"