valley, back to the south end, where
the great monuments loomed, and still farther back, where they grew
closer, till at length some of them were joined by weathered ridges to
the walls of the surrounding plateau. For all that Slone could see,
Wildfire was in perfect condition. But Nagger was not the horse he had
been. Slone realized that in one way or another the pursuit was
narrowing down to the end.

He found a water hole at the head of a wash in a split in the walls, and
here he let Nagger rest and graze one whole day--the first day for a
long time that he had not kept the red stallion in sight. That day was
marked by the good fortune of killing a rabbit, and while eating it his
gloomy, fixed mind admitted that he was starving. He dreaded the next
sunrise. But he could not hold it back. There, behind the dark
monuments, standing sentinel-like, the sky lightened and reddened and
burnt into gold and pink, till out of the golden glare the sun rose
glorious. And Slone, facing the league-long shadows of the monuments,
rode out again into the silent, solemn day, on his hopeless quest.

For a change Wildfire had climbed high up a slope of talus, through a
narrow pass, rounded over with drifting sand. And Slone gazed down into
a huge amphitheater full of monuments, like all that strange country. A
basin three miles across lay beneath him. Walls and weathered slants of
rock and steep slopes of reddish-yellow sand inclosed this oval
depression. The floor was white, and it seemed to move gently or radiate
with heat waves. Studying it, Slone made out that the motion was caused
by wind in long bleached grass. He had crossed small areas of this grass
in different parts of the region.

Wildfire's tracks led down into this basin, and presently Slone, by
straining his eyes, made out the red spot that was the stallion.

"He's lookin' to quit the country," soliloquized Slone, as he surveyed
the scene.

With keen, slow gaze Slone studied the lay of wall and slope, and when
he had circled the huge depression he made sure that Wildfire could not
get out except by the narrow pass through which he had gone in. Slone
sat astride Nagger in the mouth of this pass--a wash a few yards wide,
walled by broken, rough rock on one side and an insurmountable slope on
the other.

"If this hole was only little, now," sighed Slone, as he gazed at the
sweeping, shimmering oval floor, "I might have a chance. But down
there--we couldn't get near hi