about, apparently undecided about the trail.
After another half hour's travel and coming to a stretch of level
country, the pony halted again, refusing to respond to Hollis's repeated
urging to go forward without guidance. For a long time Hollis continued
to urge the animal--he cajoled, threatened--but the pony would not
budge. Hollis was forced to the uncomfortable realization that it had
lost the trail.

For a long time he sat quietly in the saddle, trying in the dense
darkness to determine upon direction, but he finally gave it up and with
a sudden impulse took up the reins and pulled the pony to the left,
determined to keep to the flat country as long as possible.

He traveled for what seemed several miles, the pony gingerly feeling its
way, when suddenly it halted and refused to advance. Something was
wrong. Hollis leaned forward, attempting to peer through the darkness
ahead, but not succeeding. And now, as though having accomplished its
design by causing Hollis to lose the trail, the lightning flashed again,
illuminating the surrounding country for several miles.

Hollis had been peering ahead when the flash came and he drew a deep
breath of horror and surprise. The pony had halted within a foot of the
edge of a high cliff whose side dropped away sheer, as though cut with a
knife. Down below, perhaps a hundred feet, was an immense basin, through
which flowed a stream of water. To Hollis's right, parallel with the
stream, the cliff sloped suddenly down, reaching the water's edge at a
distance of two or three hundred feet. Beyond that was a stretch of
sloping country many miles in area, and, also on his right, was a long,
high, narrow ridge. He recognized the ridge as the one on which he and
Norton had ridden some six weeks before--on the day he had had the
adventure with Ed Hazelton. Another flash of lightning showed him two
cotton-wood trees--the ones pointed out to him by Norton as marking Big
Elk crossing--the dead line set by Dunlavey and his men.

Hollis knew his direction now and he pulled the pony around and headed
it away from the edge of the cliff and toward the flat country which he
knew led down through the canyon to Devil's Hollow, where he had taken
leave of Ed and Nellie Hazelton. He was congratulating himself upon his
narrow escape when a flash of lightning again illuminated the country
and he saw, not over a hundred feet distant, sitting motionless on their
ponies, a half dozen cowboys. Also on