Wildfire

awakened by the cold. His hands were so numb that he had difficulty starting a fire. He stood ov

ackled under his feet as he went out to bring in the horses. He saw fresh deer tracks. Then he went

r 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

act that as he passed the glade where he had shot the deer a few

round 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

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 ha

ire," he soliloquized, with a short la

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

d 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

back to the trail he had left. Slone believed the horse was just so intelligent. At

n. At length the patches closed up, and soon extended as far as he could see. It was soft, affording diffic

he received the impression that the forest dropped out of sight ahead. Then the trees grew thicker, obstructing his view. Presently the trail became sog

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 an

d 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 th

ew rods of it could be seen. This trail was passable, even though choked with snow. But the depth beyond this wall seemed to fasc

, Wildfire," muttere

ord, 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 trai

k. Once as dusk came stealing down, while he was eating his meal, Nagger whistled in fright. Slone

plot, so to have the horses between fires. He cut all the venison into thin strips, and spent an hour roasting them.

seemed to him that he had become more thoughtful and observing of the aspects of his wild environment, and he felt a wel

n 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

d glorious along the peaks and ramparts, where the rising sun str

ced 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. I

t. 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. Bru

er 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

sas 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 ca

s 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

ant little progress straight ahead. But Slone kept on. He was hot and Nagger was hot, and that made hard work easier. Sometimes on the wi

g 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 bul

ld, shrill, high-pitched, piercing whistle of a stallion! Nagger neighed a blast in

yards distant, on a prom

Wildfire!" breath

ut as Nagger stamped and snorted defiance Slone looked with fi

der, 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

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.

through it. There were lines of green cottonwoods following the winding course. Then Slone saw Wildfire sl

lion 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 w

down!" mut

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 h

. If I can do it,

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

ew. 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. Wild

wift. He had to hold to Nagger to keep from being swept downstream. They crossed in safety. There

wisting, 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. Ther

r Slone saw Wildfire far ahead, high on the slope. He did not appear to be limping, but he wa

allen 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 touc

e 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

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 ir

r 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 fo

pt 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 t

dominate. 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

ht in the westering sunlight, sho

s, 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 dea

and domes, and the lofty walls of that vast, broken chaos of canyons across the river. They were

tasks, which, being soon finish

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 tr

halt. In this monotonous toil Slone forgot the zest of his pursuit. And whe

urve, which was a promontory, scarcely a hundred feet in an airline above him

away than the leng

e 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, sa

an. That was a natural action for a rider of his kind. Wildfire turned