ace to get down."

We turned sharply to the right, coming out on a narrow point. Without
mishap we reached the foot of the steep hill. At the bottom the wind was
almost wholly shut off, so that sounds were easier to distinguish. The
moon had passed its zenith long since, and half of the flat lay in dense
shadow. Beyond the shadow a pall of smoke lay over everything, a
shifting haze that made objects near at hand indefinite of outline,
impossible to classify at a glance. A horse or a tree or a clump of
brush loomed up grotesquely in the vaporous blur.

Mac, to whom the topography of that gloomy place was perfectly familiar,
led the way. A black, menacing wall that rose before us suddenly
resolved itself into a grove of trees, great four-foot cottonwoods. He
stole into the heart of the grove and satisfied himself that our game
had not appropriated it as a camping-place. That assured, we followed
with our horses and tied them securely, removing saddles and bridles,
lest the clank of steel or creaking of leather betray our presence to
listening ears. On any noise our horses might make we had no choice but
to take a chance. Then we looked to our guns and set out on a stealthy
search.

A complete circle of that tiny bottom--it was only a shelf of sage-brown
land lying between the river and the steep bank--profited us nothing,
and Piegan whispered that now we must seek for them in the gorge.

Cautiously we retraced our steps from the lower end of the flat, and
turned into the narrow mouth of the canyon. We had no more than got
fairly between the straight-up-and-down walls of it than Piegan halted
us with a warning hand. We squatted in the sage-brush and listened.
Behind us, from the river, came a gentle plashing.

"Beaver," I hazarded.

"Too loud," Piegan murmured. "Let's go back an' see."

We reached the river-edge just in time to hear the splashing die away;
and though we strained our eyes looking, we could make out no movement
on the surface of the river or in the dimly-outlined scrub that fringed
the opposite bank. Piegan turned on the instant and ran to where we had
tied our horses; but they stood quietly as we had left them.

"I got a hunch they'd got onto us, an' maybe set us afoot for a
starter," Piegan explained. "I reckon that must 'a' been a deer or some
other wild critter."

Once more we turned into the canyon, and this time followed its narrow,
scrub-patched floor some three hundred yards up from the riv