ed 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.

CHAPTER VI

That was the last Slone saw of Wildfire for three days.

It took all of this day to climb out of the canyon. The second was a
slow march of thirty miles into a scrub cedar and pinyon forest,
through which the great red and yellow walls of the canyon could be
seen. That night Slone found a water-hole