第25章

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.