第23章

"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.Ablast 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.