d him. Wildfire might see or hear or scent him, and make a break
back to the pass and thus escape. Slone was glad when the huge, dark
monuments were indistinguishable from the black, frowning wall. He had
to go slower here, because of the darkness. But at last he reached the
slow rise of jumbled rock that evidently marked the extent of
weathering on that side. Here he turned to the right and rode out into
the valley. The floor was level and thickly overgrown with long, dead
grass and dead greasewood, as dry as tinder. It was easy to account for
the dryness; neither snow nor rain had visited that valley for many
months. Slone whipped one of the sticks in the wind and soon had the
smoldering end red and showering sparks. Then he dropped the stick in
the grass, with curious intent and a strange feeling of regret.

Instantly the grass blazed with a little sputtering roar. Nagger
snorted. "Wildfire!" exclaimed Slone. That word was a favorite one with
riders, and now Slone used it both to call out his menace to the
stallion and to express his feeling for that blaze, already running
wild.

Without looking back Slone rode across the valley, dropping a glowing
stick every quarter of a mile. When he reached the other side there
were a dozen fires behind him, burning slowly, with white smoke rising
lazily. Then he loped Nagger along the side back to the sandy ascent,
and on up to the mouth of the pass. There he searched for tracks.
Wildfire had not gone out, and Slone experienced relief and exultation.
He took up a position in the middle of the narrowest part of the pass,
and there, with Nagger ready for anything, he once more composed
himself to watch and wait.

Far across the darkness of the valley, low down, twelve lines of fire,
widely separated, crept toward one another. They appeared thin and
slow, with only an occasional leaping flame. And some of the black
spaces must have been monuments, blotting out the creeping snail-lines
of red. Slone watched, strangely fascinated.

"What do you think of that?" he said, aloud, and he meant his query for
Wildfire.

As he watched the lines perceptibly lengthened and brightened and pale
shadows of smoke began to appear. Over at the left of the valley the
two brightest fires, the first he had started, crept closer and closer
together. They seemed long in covering distance. But not a breath of
wind stirred, and besides they really might move swiftly, without
looking so to Slone. When