ld her was to leave Creech alone. Finally, when Muncie
discharged Joel, who worked now and then, Lucy realized that something
was wrong with Joel and that she was to blame for it.

She grew worried and anxious and sorry, but she held her peace, and
determined to find out for herself what was wrong. Every day when she
rode out into the sage she expected to meet him, or at least see him
somewhere; nevertheless days went by and there was no sign of him.

One afternoon she saw some Indians driving sheep down the river road
toward the ford, and, acting upon impulse, she turned her horse after
them.

Lucy seldom went down the river road. Riding down and up was merely
work, and a horse has as little liking for it as she had. Usually it
was a hot, dusty trip, and the great, dark, overhanging walls had a
depressing effect, upon her. She always felt awe at the gloomy canyon
and fear at the strange, murmuring red river. But she started down this
afternoon in the hope of meeting Joel. She had a hazy idea of telling
him she was sorry for what she had done, and of asking him to forget it
and pay no more heed to the riders.

The sheep raised a dust-cloud in the sandy wash where the road wound
down, and Lucy hung back to let them get farther ahead. Gradually the
tiny roar of pattering hoofs and the blended bleating and baaing died
away. The dust-cloud, however, hung over the head of the ravine, and
Lucy had to force Sarchedon through it. Sarchedon did not mind sand and
dust, but he surely hated the smell of sheep. Lucy seldom put a spur to
Sarchedon; still, she gave him a lash with her quirt, and then he went
on obediently, if disgustedly. He carried his head like a horse that
wondered why his mistress preferred to drive him down into an
unpleasant hole when she might have been cutting the sweet, cool sage
wind up on the slope.

The wash, with its sand and clay walls, dropped into a gulch, and there
was an end of green growths. The road led down over solid rock.
Gradually the rims of the gorge rose, shutting out the light and the
cliffs. It was a winding road and one not safe to tarry on in a stormy
season. Lucy had seen boulders weighing a ton go booming down that
gorge during one of the sudden fierce desert storms, when a torrent of
water and mud and stone went plunging on to the river. The ride through
here was short, though slow. Lucy always had time to adjust her
faculties for the overpowering contrast these lower regions pre