s was the setting for that grand horse--a
perfect wild range. But also it seemed the last place where there might
be any chance to trap the stallion. Still that did not alter Slone's
purpose, though it lost to him the joy of former hopes. He rode down the
slope, out upon the billowing floor of the valley. Wildfire looked back
to see his pursuers, and then the solemn stillness broke to a wild,
piercing whistle.

* * * * *

Day after day, camping where night found him, Slone followed the
stallion, never losing sight of him till darkness had fallen. The valley
was immense and the monuments miles apart. But they always seemed close
together and near him. The air magnified everything. Slone lost track of
time. The strange, solemn, lonely days and the silent, lonely nights,
and the endless pursuit, and the wild, weird valley--these completed the
work of years on Slone and he became satisfied, unthinking, almost
savage.

The toil and privation had worn him down and he was like iron. His
garments hung in tatters; his boots were ripped and soleless. Long since
his flour had been used up, and all his supplies except the salt. He
lived on the meat of rabbits, but they were scarce, and the time came
when there were none. Some days he did not eat. Hunger did not make him
suffer. He killed a desert bird now and then, and once a wildcat
crossing the valley. Eventually he felt his strength diminishing, and
then he took to digging out the pack rats and cooking them. But these,
too, were scarce. At length starvation faced Slone. But he knew he would
not starve. Many times he had been within rifle shot of Wildfire. And
the grim, forbidding thought grew upon him that he must kill the
stallion. The thought seemed involuntary, but his mind rejected it.
Nevertheless, he knew that if he could not catch the stallion he would
kill him. That had been the end of many a desperate rider's pursuit of a
coveted horse.

While Slone kept on his merciless pursuit, never letting Wildfire rest
by day, time went on just as relentlessly. Spring gave way to early
summer. The hot sun bleached the grass; water holes failed out in the
valley, and water could be found only in the canyons; and the dry winds
began to blow the sand. It was a sandy valley, green and gray only at a
distance, and out toward the north there were no monuments, and the slow
heave of sand lifted toward the dim walls.

Wildfire worked away from this open