the way off
the edge, "can you see where Jack Main's Canon is from here?"

"Jack Main's!" repeated young Pollock. "Why, if you was on the top of
the farthest mountain in sight, you couldn't see any place you could see
it from."

"Good Lord!" said Bob.

The way zigzagged down the slope of the mountain. As Jack had said,
there was no trail, but the tracks left by the four rangers were plainly
to be discerned. Bob, following the pack horses, had leisure to observe
how skilfully this way had been picked out. Always it held to the easy
footing, but always it was evident that if certain turns had not been
made some distance back this easy footing would have lacked. At times
the tracks led far to the left at nearly the same level until one, two
or three little streams had been crossed. Then without apparent reason
they turned directly down the backbone of a steep ridge exactly like a
half-dozen others they had passed over. But later Bob saw that this
ridge was the only one of the lot that dipped over gently to lower
levels; all the rest broke off abruptly in precipitous rocks. Bob was a
good woodsman, but this was his first experience in that mountaineering
skill which noses its way by the "lay of the country."

In the meantime they were steadily descending. The trees hemmed them
closer. Thickets of willows and alders had to be crossed. Dimly through
the tree-tops they seemed to see the sky darkening by degrees as they
worked their way down. At first Bob thought it the lateness of the
afternoon; then he concluded it must be the smoke of the fire; finally,
through a clear opening, he saw this apparent darkening of the horizon
was in reality the blue of the canon wall opposite, rising as they
descended. But, too, as they drew nearer, the heavy smoke of the
conflagration began to spread over them. In time it usurped the heavens,
and Bob had difficulty in believing that it could appear to any one
anywhere as so simple a mushroom-head over a slender smoke column.

By the time the horses stepped from the slope to the bed of the canon,
it was quite dark. Jack turned down stream.

"We'll cut the trail to Burro Rock pretty quick," said he.

Within five minutes of travel they did cut it; a narrow brown trough,
trodden by the hoofs of many generations of cattlemen bound for the back
country. Almost immediately it began to mount the slope.

Now ahead, through the gathering twilight, lights began to show,
sometimes scattered, som