In the early morning when all was gray and the big, dark pines were
shadowy specters, Slone was awakened by the cold. His hands were so
numb that he had difficulty starting a fire. He stood over the blaze,
warming them. The air was nipping, clear and thin, and sweet with
frosty fragrance.
Daylight came while he was in the midst of his morning meal. A white
frost covered the ground and crackled under his feet as he went out to
bring in the horses. He saw fresh deer tracks. Then he went back to
camp for his rifle. Keeping a sharp lookout for game, he continued his
search for the horses.
The forest was open and park-like. There were no fallen trees or
evidences of fire. Presently he came to a wide glade in the midst of
which Nagger and the pack-mustang were grazing with a herd of deer. The
size of the latter amazed Slone. The deer he had hunted back on the
Sevier range were much smaller than these. Evidently these were mule
deer, closely allied to the elk. They were so tame they stood facing
him curiously, with long ears erect. It was sheer murder to kill a deer
standing and watching like that, but Slone was out of meat and hungry
and facing a long, hard trip. He shot a buck, which leaped
spasmodically away, trying to follow the herd, and fell at the edge of
the glade. Slone cut out a haunch, and then, catching the horses, he
returned to camp, where he packed and saddled, and at once rode out on
the dim trail.
The wildness of the country he was entering was evident in the fact
that as he passed the glade where he had shot the deer a few minutes
before, there were coyotes quarreling over the carcass.
Stone could see ahead and on each side several hundred yards, and
presently he ascertained that the forest floor was not so level as he
had supposed. He had entered a valley or was traversing a wide, gently
sloping pass. He went through thickets of juniper, and had to go around
clumps of quaking aspen. The pines grew larger and farther apart.
Cedars and pinyons had been left behind, and he had met with no silver
spruces after leaving camp. Probably that point was the height of a
divide. There were banks of snow in some of the hollows on the north
side. Evidently the snow had very recently melted, and it was evident
also that the depth of snow through here had been fully ten feet,
judging from the mutilation of the juniper-trees where the deer,
standing on the hard, frozen crust, had browsed upon the branches.
The quiet of the forest thrilled Slone. And the only movement was the
occasional gray flash of a deer or coyote across a glade. No birds of
any species crossed Stone's sight. He came, presently, upon a lion
track in the trail, made probably a day before. Slone grew curious
about it, seeing how it held, as he was holding, to Wildfire's tracks.
After a mile or so he made sure the lion had been trailing the
stallion, and for a second he felt a cold contraction of his heart.
Already he loved Wildfire, and by virtue of all this toil of travel
considered the wild horse his property.
"No lion could ever get close to Wildfire," he soliloquized, with a
short laugh. Of that he was absolutely certain.
The sun rose, melting the frost, and a breath of warm air, laden with
the scent of pine, moved heavily under the huge, yellow trees. Slone
passed a point where the remains of an old camp-fire and a pile of deer
antlers were further proof that Indians visited this plateau to hunt.
From this camp broader, more deeply defined trails led away to the
south and east. Slone kept to the east trail, in which Wildfire's
tracks and those of the lion showed clearly. It was about the middle of
the forenoon when the tracks of the stallion and lion left the trail to
lead up a little draw where grass grew thick. Slone followed, reading
the signs of Wildfire's progress, and the action of his pursuer, as
well as if he had seen them. Here the stallion had plowed into a
snow-bank, eating a hole two feet deep; then he had grazed around a
little; then on and on; there his splendid tracks were deep in the soft
earth. Slone knew what to expect when the track of the lion veered from
those of the horse, and he followed the lion tracks. The ground was
soft from the late melting of snow, and Nagger sunk deep. The lion left
a plain track. Here he stole steadily along; there he left many tracks
at a point where he might have halted to make sure of his scent. He was
circling on the trail of the stallion, with cunning intent of ambush.
The end of this slow, careful stalk of the lion, as told in his tracks,
came upon the edge of a knoll where he had crouched to watch and wait.
From this perch he had made a magnificent spring--Slone estimating it
to be forty feet--but he had missed the stallion. There were Wildfire's
tracks again, slow and short, and then deep and sharp where in the
impetus of fright he had sprung out of reach. A second leap of the
lion, and then lessening bounds, and finally an abrupt turn from
Wildfire's trail told the futility of that stalk. Slone made certain
that Wildfire was so keen that as he grazed along he had kept to open
ground.
Wildfire had run for a mile, then slowed down to a trot, and he had
circled to get back to the trail he had left. Slone believed the horse
was just so intelligent. At any rate, Wildfire struck the trail again,
and turned at right angles to follow it.
Here the forest floor appeared perfectly level. Patches of snow became
frequent, and larger as Slone went on. At length the patches closed up,
and soon extended as far as he could see. It was soft, affording
difficult travel. Slone crossed hundreds of deer tracks, and the trail
he was on eventually became a deer runway.
Presently, far down one of the aisles between the great pines Slone saw
what appeared to be a yellow cliff, far away. It puzzled him. And as he
went on he received the impression that the forest dropped out of sight
ahead. Then the trees grew thicker, obstructing his view. Presently the
trail became soggy and he had to help his horse. The mustang floundered
in the soft snow and earth. Cedars and pinyons appeared again, making
travel still more laborious.
All at once there came to Slone a strange consciousness of light and
wind and space and void. On the instant his horse halted with a snort.
Slone quickly looked up. Had he come to the end of the world? An abyss,
a canyon, yawned beneath him, beyond all comparison in its greatness.
His keen eye, educated to desert distance and dimension, swept down and
across, taking in the tremendous truth, before it staggered his
comprehension. But a second sweeping glance, slower, becoming
intoxicated with what it beheld, saw gigantic cliff-steps and yellow
slopes dotted with cedars, leading down to clefts filled with purple
smoke, and these led on and on to a ragged red world of rock, bare,
shining, bold, uplifted in mesa, dome, peak, and crag, clear and
strange in the morning light, still and sleeping like death.
This, then, was the great canyon, which had seemed like a hunter's
fable rather than truth. Slone's sight dimmed, blurring the spectacle,
and he found that his eyes had filled with tears. He wiped them away
and looked again and again, until he was confounded by the vastness and
the grandeur and the vague sadness of the scene. Nothing he had ever
looked at had affected him like this canyon, although the Stewarts had
tried to prepare him for it.
It was the horse-hunter's passion that reminded him of his pursuit. The
deer trail led down through a break in the wall. Only a few rods of it
could be seen. This trail was passable, even though choked with snow.
But the depth beyond this wall seemed to fascinate Slone and hold him
back, used as he was to desert trails. Then the clean mark of
Wildfire's hoof brought back the old thrill.
"This place fits you, Wildfire," muttered Slone, dismounting.
He started down, leading Nagger. The mustang followed. Slone kept to
the wall side of the trail, fearing the horses might slip. The snow
held firmly at first and Slone had no trouble. The gap in the rim-rock
widened to a slope thickly grown over with cedars and pinyons and
manzanita. This growth made the descent more laborious, yet afforded
means at least for Slone to go down with less danger. There was no
stopping. Once started, the horses had to keep on. Slone saw the
impossibility of ever climbing out while that snow was there. The trail
zigzagged down and down. Very soon the yellow wall hung tremendously
over him, straight up. The snow became thinner and softer. The horses
began to slip. They slid on their haunches. Fortunately the slope grew
less steep, and Slone could see below where it reached out to
comparatively level ground. Still, a mishap might yet occur. Slone kept
as close to Nagger as possible, helping him whenever he could do it.
The mustang slipped, rolled over, and then slipped past Slone, went
down the slope to bring up in a cedar. Slone worked down to him and
extricated him. Then the huge Nagger began to slide. Snow and loose
rock slid with him, and so did Slone. The little avalanche stopped of
its own accord, and then Slone dragged Nagger on down and down,
presently to come to the end of the steep descent. Slone looked up to
see that he had made short work of a thousand-foot slope. Here cedars
and pinyons grew thickly enough to make a forest. The snow thinned out
to patches, and then failed. But the going remained bad for a while as
the horses sank deep in a soft red earth. This eventually grew more
solid and finally dry. Slone worked out of the cedars to what appeared
a grassy plateau inclosed by the great green-and-white slope with its
yellow wall over hanging, and distant mesas and cliffs. Here his view
was restricted. He was down on the first bench of the great canyon. And
there was the deer trail, a well-worn path keeping to the edge of the
slope. Slone came to a deep cut in the earth, and the trail headed it,
where it began at the last descent of the slope. It was the source of a
canyon. He could look down to see the bare, worn rock, and a hundred
yards from where he stood the earth was washed from its rims and it
began to show depth and something of that ragged outline which told of
violence of flood. The trail headed many canyons like this, all running
down across this bench, disappearing, dropping invisibly. The trail
swung to the left under the great slope, and then presently it climbed
to a higher bench. Here were brush and grass and huge patches of sage,
so pungent that it stung Slone's nostrils. Then he went down again,
this time to come to a clear brook lined by willows. Here the horses
drank long and Slone refreshed himself. The sun had grown hot. There
was fragrance of flowers he could not see and a low murmur of a
waterfall that was likewise invisible. For most of the time his view
was shut off, but occasionally he reached a point where through some
break he saw towers gleaming red in the sun. A strange place, a place
of silence, and smoky veils in the distance. Time passed swiftly.
Toward the waning of the afternoon he began to climb to what appeared
to be a saddle of land, connecting the canyon wall on the left with a
great plateau, gold-rimmed and pine-fringed, rising more and more in
his way as he advanced. At sunset Slone was more shut in than for
several hours. He could tell the time was sunset by the golden light on
the cliff wall again overhanging him. The slope was gradual up to this
pass to the saddle, and upon coming to a spring, and the first
pine-trees, he decided to halt for a camp. The mustang was almost
exhausted.
Thereupon he hobbled the horses in the luxuriant grass round the
spring, and then unrolled his pack. Once as dusk came stealing down,
while he was eating his meal, Nagger whistled in fright. Slone saw a
gray, pantherish form gliding away into the shadows. He took a quick
shot at it, but missed.
"It's a lion country, all right," he said. And then he set about
building a big fire on the other side of the grassy plot, so to have
the horses between fires. He cut all the venison into thin strips, and
spent an hour roasting them. Then he lay down to rest, and he said:
"Wonder where Wildfire is to-night? Am I closer to him? Where's he
headin' for?"
The night was warm and still. It was black near the huge cliff, and
overhead velvety blue, with stars of white fire. It seemed to him that
he had become more thoughtful and observing of the aspects of his wild
environment, and he felt a welcome consciousness of loneliness. Then
sleep came to him and the night seemed short. In the gray dawn he arose
refreshed.
The horses were restive. Nagger snorted a welcome. Evidently they had
passed an uneasy night. Slone found lion tracks at the spring and in
sandy places. Presently he was on his way up to the notch between the
great wall and the plateau. A growth of thick scrub-oak made travel
difficult. It had not appeared far up to that saddle, but it was far.
There were straggling pine-trees and huge rocks that obstructed his
gaze. But once up he saw that the saddle was only a narrow ridge,
curved to slope up on both sides.
Straight before Slone and under him opened the canyon, blazing and
glorious along the peaks and ramparts, where the rising sun struck,
misty and smoky and shadowy down in those mysterious depths.
It took an effort not to keep on gazing. But Slone turned to the grim
business of his pursuit. The trail he saw leading down had been made by
Indians. It was used probably once a year by them; and also by wild
animals, and it was exceedingly steep and rough. Wildfire had paced to
and fro along the narrow ridge of that saddle, making many tracks,
before he had headed down again. Slone imagined that the great stallion
had been daunted by the tremendous chasm, but had finally faced it,
meaning to put this obstacle between him and his pursuers. It never
occurred to Slone to attribute less intelligence to Wildfire than that.
So, dismounting, Slone took Nagger's bridle and started down. The
mustang with the pack was reluctant. He snorted and whistled and pawed
the earth. But he would not be left alone, so he followed.
The trail led down under cedars that fringed a precipice. Slone was
aware of this without looking. He attended only to the trail and to his
horse. Only an Indian could have picked out that course, and it was
cruel to put a horse to it. But Nagger was powerful, sure-footed, and
he would go anywhere that Slone led him. Gradually Slone worked down
and away from the bulging rim-wall. It was hard, rough work, and risky
because it could not be accomplished slowly. Brush and rocks, loose
shale and weathered slope, long, dusty inclines of yellow earth, and
jumbles of stone--these made bad going for miles of slow, zigzag trail
down out of the cedars. Then the trail entered what appeared to be a
ravine.
That ravine became a canyon. At its head it was a dry wash, full of
gravel and rocks. It began to cut deep into the bowels of the earth. It
shut out sight of the surrounding walls and peaks. Water appeared from
under a cliff and, augmented by other springs, became a brook. Hot,
dry, and barren at its beginning, this cleft became cool and shady and
luxuriant with grass and flowers and amber moss with silver blossoms.
The rocks had changed color from yellow to deep red. Four hours of
turning and twisting, endlessly down and down, over boulders and banks
and every conceivable roughness of earth and rock, finished the
pack-mustang; and Slone mercifully left him in a long reach of canyon
where grass and water never failed. In this place Slone halted for the
noon hour, letting Nagger have his fill of the rich grazing. Nagger's
three days in grassy upland, despite the continuous travel by day, had
improved him. He looked fat, and Slone had not yet caught the horse
resting. Nagger was iron to endure. Here Slone left all the outfit
except what was on his saddle, and the sack containing the few pounds
of meat and supplies, and the two utensils. This sack he tied on the
back of his saddle, and resumed his journey.
Presently he came to a place where Wildfire had doubled on his trail
and had turned up a side canyon. The climb out was hard on Slone, if
not on Nagger. Once up, Slone found himself upon a wide, barren plateau
of glaring red rock and clumps of greasewood and cactus. The plateau
was miles wide, shut in by great walls and mesas of colored rock. The
afternoon sun beat down fiercely. A blast of wind, as if from a
furnace, swept across the plateau, and it was laden with red dust.
Slone walked here, where he could have ridden. And he made several
miles of up-and-down progress over this rough plateau. The great walls
of the opposite side of the canyon loomed appreciably closer. What,
Slone wondered, was at the bottom of this rent in the earth? The great
desert river was down there, of course, but he knew nothing of it.
Would that turn back Wildfire? Slone thought grimly how he had always
claimed Nagger to be part fish and part bird. Wildfire was not going to
escape.
By and by only isolated mescal plants with long, yellow-plumed spears
broke the bare monotony of the plateau. And Slone passed from red sand
and gravel to a red, soft shale, and from that to hard, red rock. Here
Wildfire's tracks were lost, the first time in seven weeks. But Slone
had his direction down that plateau with the cleavage lines of canyons
to right and left. At times Slone found a vestige of the old Indian
trail, and this made him doubly sure of being right. He did not need to
have Wildfire's tracks. He let Nagger pick the way, and the horse made
no mistake in finding the line of least resistance. But that grew
harder and harder. This bare rock, like a file, would soon wear
Wildfire's hoofs thin. And Slone rejoiced. Perhaps somewhere down in
this awful chasm he and Nagger would have it out with the stallion.
Slone began to look far ahead, beginning to believe that he might see
Wildfire. Twice he had seen Wildfire, but only at a distance. Then he
had resembled a running streak of fire, whence his name, which Slone
had given him.
This bare region of rock began to be cut up into gullies. It was
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.
"My Lord! ... 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 Slone. 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 little 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 cottonwoods 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 box-like 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 be 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 up-stream 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
half-way 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
airline 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 lassoes!
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
failing 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. Whatever Wildfire
was, he was a devil, a murderer--he had no noble attributes. 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.