ut the pleasure his compliment gave her was not communicated to him.
His last impression of that right arm had been of its strength, and
his mind flashed with lightning swiftness to a picture that haunted
him--Waggoner lying dead on the porch with that powerfully driven knife
in his breast. Shefford shuddered through all his being. Would this
phantom come often to him like that? Hurriedly he bound up her arm with
the scarf and did not look at her, and was conscious that she felt a
subtle change in him.

The short twilight ended with the fugitives comfortable in a camp that
for natural features could not have been improved upon. Darkness found
Fay and Jane asleep on a soft mossy bed, a blanket tucked around them,
and their faces still and beautiful in the flickering camp-fire light.
Lassiter did not linger long awake. Nas Ta Bega, seeing Shefford's
excessive fatigue, urged him to sleep. Shefford demurred, insisting that
he share the night-watch. But Nas Ta Bega, by agreeing that Shefford
might have the following night's duty, prevailed upon him.

Shefford seemed to shut his eyes upon darkness and to open them
immediately to the light. The stream of blue sky above, the gold tints
on the western rim, the rosy, brightening colors down in the canyon,
were proofs of the sunrise. This morning Nas Ta Bega proceeded
leisurely, and his manner was comforting. When all was in readiness
for a start he gave the mustang he had ridden to Shefford, and walked,
leading the pack-animal.

The mode of travel here was a selection of the best levels, the best
places to cross the brook, the best banks to climb, and it was a process
of continual repetition. As the Indian picked out the course and the
mustangs followed his lead there was nothing for Shefford to do but take
his choice between reflection that seemed predisposed toward gloom and
an absorption in the beauty, color, wildness, and changing character of
Nonnezoshe Boco.

Assuredly his experience in the desert did not count in it a trip down
into a strange, beautiful, lost canyon such as this. It did not widen,
though the walls grew higher. They began to lean and bulge, and the
narrow strip of sky above resembled a flowing blue river. Huge caverns
had been hollowed out by some work of nature, what, he could not tell,
though he was sure it could not have been wind. And when the brook ran
close under one of these overhanging places the running water made a
singular, indescribable soun