his rifle resting across his forearm
looked around. He was battered and had a stinging ankle, but stood
with legs and arms at least usable. Listening, he tiptoed as fast as
he could to the narrow footpath leading into the canyon, and turning a
corner of the rock wall hastened down to where he had picketed his
horse. This trail was not exposed from above. But when he reached his
horse and got stiffly into the saddle his problem was less simple.

To get out of the tremendous fissure in which he was trapped from
above, Laramie had one trail to follow. This led for a hundred feet in
an extremely sharp descent across the face of a nearly vertical canyon
wall that flanked the recess where the horse had been left. This first
hundred feet of his way down to the river, so steep that it was known
as the Ladder, was all that caused Laramie any uneasiness; it was
commanded every foot of the way from the abutment above.

Making all possible haste, Laramie headed his horse stealthily for the
Ladder. He knew he had lost the most precious juncture of the dawn in
lying paralyzed for some unexpected moments after his drop. It was a
chance of war and he made no complaint. Indeed, as he reached the
beginning of his trail and peered downward he realized that he needed
daylight for the perilous ride. To take it slowly would be child's
play for him but would leave him an easy target from above. To ride it
fast was to invite a header for his horse and himself; one misstep
would send the horse and rider bolting into space. How far it was to
the river through this space Laramie felt little curiosity in figuring;
but it could hardly have been less than two hundred and fifty feet.

There was no time for much thinking; the trail must be ridden and the
sooner and faster the better. He struck his horse lightly. The horse
jumped, but not very far ahead. Again Laramie used his heels and again
the frightened beast sprung as little as he could ahead. A stinging
lash was the only reward for his caution. If horses think, Laramie's
horse must have imagined himself backed by a madman, and under the
goading of his rider, the beast, quivering with fear, peered at the
broken rocks below and sprang down among them. Concealment was no
longer possible.

Like a man heading into a hailstorm, Laramie crouched to the horse,
dropped the reins low on the beast's neck, and, clinging close, made
himself as nearly as he could a part of the animal itsel