.
And he was partial to washes and dips in the earth where water might
have lodged. And he was not now scornful of a green-scummed water-hole
with its white margin of alkali. That night Slone made camp with
Wildfire in plain sight. The stallion stopped when his pursuers
stopped. And he began to graze on the same stretch with Nagger. How
strange this seemed to Slone!

Here at this camp was evidence of Indians. Wildfire had swung round to
the north in his course. Like any pursued wild animal, he had began to
circle. And he had pointed his nose toward the Utah he had left.

Next morning Wildfire was not in sight, but he had left his tracks in
the sand. Slone trailed him with Nagger at a trot. Toward the head of
this sandy flat Slone came upon old corn-fields, and a broken dam where
the water had been stored, and well-defined trails leading away to the
right. Somewhere over there in the desert lived Indians. At this point
Wildfire abandoned the trail he had followed for many days and cut out
more to the north. It took all the morning hours to climb three great
steps and benches that led up to the summit of a mesa, vast in extent.
It turned out to be a sandy waste. The wind rose and everywhere were
moving sheets of sand, and in the distance circular yellow dust-devils,
rising high like waterspouts, and back down in the sun-scorched valley
a sandstorm moved along majestically, burying the desert in its yellow
pall.

Then two more days of sand and another day of a slowly rising ground
growing from bare to gray and gray to green, and then to the purple of
sage and cedar--these three grinding days were toiled out with only one
water-hole.

And Wildfire was lame and in distress and Nagger was growing gaunt and
showing strain; and Slone, haggard and black and worn, plodded miles
and miles on foot to save his horse.

Slone felt that it would be futile to put the chase to a test of speed.
Nagger could never head that stallion. Slone meant to go on and on,
always pushing Wildfire, keeping him tired, wearied, and worrying him,
till a section of the country was reached where he could drive Wildfire
into some kind of a natural trap. The pursuit seemed endless. Wildfire
kept to open country where he could not be surprised.

There came a morning when Slone climbed to a cedared plateau that rose
for a whole day's travel, and then split into a labyrinthine maze of
canyons. There were trees, grass, water. It was a high country, cool