e trails
also.
"That cattle trail headed out of here," Venters kept saying to himself.
"It headed out. Now what I want to know is how on earth did cattle ever
get in here?"
If he could be sure of anything it was of the careful scrutiny he had
given that cattle track, every hoofmark of which headed straight west.
He was now looking east at an immense round boxed corner of canyon down
which tumbled a thin, white veil of water, scarcely twenty yards wide.
Somehow, somewhere, his calculations had gone wrong. For the first time
in years he found himself doubting his rider's skill in finding tracks,
and his memory of what he had actually seen. In his anxiety to keep
under cover he must have lost himself in this offshoot of Deception
Pass, and thereby in some unaccountable manner, missed the canyon with
the trails. There was nothing else for him to think. Rustlers could not
fly, nor cattle jump down thousand-foot precipices. He was only proving
what the sage-riders had long said of this labyrinthine system of
deceitful canyons and valleys--trails led down into Deception Pass, but
no rider had ever followed them.
On a sudden he heard above the soft roar of the waterfall an unusual
sound that he could not define. He dropped flat behind a stone and
listened. From the direction he had come swelled something that
resembled a strange muffled pounding and splashing and ringing. Despite
his nerve the chill sweat began to dampen his forehead. What might not
be possible in this stonewalled maze of mystery? The unnatural sound
passed beyond him as he lay gripping his rifle and fighting for
coolness. Then from the open came the sound, now distinct and different.
Venters recognized a hobble-bell of a horse, and the cracking of iron on
submerged stones, and the hollow splash of hoofs in water.
Relief surged over him. His mind caught again at realities, and
curiosity prompted him to peep from behind the rock.
In the middle of the stream waded a long string of packed burros driven
by three superbly mounted men. Had Venters met these dark-clothed,
dark-visaged, heavily armed men anywhere in Utah, let alone in this
robbers' retreat, he would have recognized them as rustlers. The
discerning eye of a rider saw the signs of a long, arduous trip. These
men were packing in supplies from one of the northern villages. They
were tired, and their horses were almost played out, and the burros
plodded on, after the manner of their kind when exh
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