m."

There was no water in that dry bowl. Slone reflected on the uselessness
of keeping Wildfire down there, because Nagger could not go without
water as long as Wildfire. For the first time Slone hesitated. It seemed
merciless to Nagger to drive him down into this hot, windy hole. The
wind blew from the west, and it swooped up the slope, hot, with the odor
of dry, dead grass.

But that hot wind stirred Slone with an idea, and suddenly he was tense,
excited, glowing, yet grim and hard.

"Wildfire, I'll make you run with your namesake in that high grass,"
called Slone. The speech was full of bitter failure, of regret, of the
hardness of a rider who could not give up the horse to freedom.

Slone meant to ride down there and fire the long grass. In that wind
there would indeed be wildfire to race with the red stallion. It would
perhaps mean his death; at least it would chase him out of that hole,
where to follow him would be useless.

"I'd make you hump now to get away if I could get behind you," muttered
Slone. He saw that if he could fire the grass on the other side the wind
of flame would drive Wildfire straight toward him. The slopes and walls
narrowed up to the pass, but high grass grew to within a few rods of
where Slone stood. But it seemed impossible to get behind Wildfire.

"At night--then--I could get round him," said Slone, thinking hard and
narrowing his gaze to scan the circle of wall and slope. "Why not? . . .
No wind at night. That grass would burn slow till mornin'--till the wind
came up--an' it's been west for days."

Suddenly Slone began to pound the patient Nagger and to cry out to him
in wild exultance.

"Old horse, we've got him! We've got him! We'll put a rope on him before
this time to-morrow!"

Slone yielded to his strange, wild joy, but it did not last long, soon
succeeding to sober, keen thought. He rode down into the bowl a mile,
making absolutely certain that Wildfire could not climb out on that
side. The far end, beyond the monuments, was a sheer wall of rock. Then
he crossed to the left side. Here the sandy slope was almost too steep
for even him to go up. And there was grass that would burn. He returned
to the pass assured that Wildfire had at last fallen into a trap the
like Slone had never dreamed of. The great horse was doomed to run into
living flame or the whirling noose of a lasso.

Then Slone reflected. Nagger had that very morning had his fill of good
water--the first real