e haste with a strange people in the hills. Yet he kept on,
growing steadily more weary, yet with pride ever to the fore, until a
faint light began to streak the overhead sky, stealing cautiously down
the ragged walls of the canyon. Then he found himself pulled into a
walk.

He was facing a narrow defile that wound up among the overhanging crags.
Glad of the privilege of resting, for a walk was a rest with him now, he
set forward into the uninviting pass. Up and up he clambered, crowding
narrowly past boulders, rounding on slender ledges, up and ever up. As
he ascended he saw gray-white vales below, felt the stimulus of a rarer
air, and at last found his heart fluttering unpleasantly in the higher
altitude. Yet he held grimly to his task, and, when broad daylight was
streaming full upon him, he found himself on a wide shelf of rock, a
ledge falling sheer on one side to unseen depths, towering on the other
to awe-inspiring heights. Here he came to a halt. And then, so tired was
he, so faint with exhaustion, so racked of body and spirit, that he sank
upon the cool rock even before the men could clear themselves from him,
and lay there on his side, his eyes closed, his lungs greedily sucking
air.

The glare of full daylight aroused him. Regaining his feet, he stared
about him. He saw many strange-looking men, and near them many dirty and
bedraggled horses. He turned his eyes outward from the ledge. He saw
around him bristling peaks, and below them, far below, a trailing
canyon, winding in and out among hills toward the rising sun, and
terminating in a giant V, beyond which, a connecting thread between its
sloping sides, lay an expanse of rolling mesa. It was far from him,
however--very, very far--and he grew dizzy at the view, finding himself
more and more unnerved by the height. At length he turned away and swept
his eyes again over the horses, where he was glad to find the rangy
sorrel. Then he turned back to the men, some of whom were standing,
others squatting, but all in moody silence.

As he looked he grew aware that a pair of dark eyes were fixed upon him.
He stared back, noting the man's long hair and painted features and the
familiar glow of admiration in his eyes. Believing him to be his new
master, he continued to regard him soberly until the man, with a grunt
and a grimace, rose and approached him. Pat stood very still under a
rigid examination. The man rubbed his ankles, turned up his hoofs,
looked at his t