purple of
sage and cedar--these three grinding days were toiled out with only one
water hole.

And Wildfire was lame and in distress and Nagger was growing gaunt and
showing strain; and Slone, haggard and black and worn, plodded miles and
miles on foot to save his horse.

Slone felt that it would be futile to put the chase to a test of speed.
Nagger could never head that stallion. Slone meant to go on and on,
always pushing Wildfire, keeping him tired, wearied, and worrying him,
till a section of the country was reached where he could drive Wildfire
into some kind of a natural trap. The pursuit seemed endless. Wildfire
kept to open country where he could not be surprised.

There came a morning when Slone climbed to a cedared plateau that rose
for a whole day's travel, and then split into a labyrinthine maze of
canyons. There were trees, grass, water. It was a high country, cool and
wild, like the uplands he had left. For days he camped on Wildfire's
trail, always relentlessly driving him, always watching for the trap he
hoped to find. And the red stallion spent much of this time of flight in
looking backward. Whenever Slone came in sight of him he had his head
over his shoulder, watching. And on the soft ground of these canyons he
had begun to recover from his lameness. But this did not worry Slone.
Sooner or later Wildfire would go down into a high-walled wash, from
which there would be no outlet; or he would wander into a box canyon; or
he would climb out on a mesa with no place to descend, unless he passed
Slone; or he would get cornered on a soft, steep slope where his hoofs
would sink deep and make him slow. The nature of the desert had changed.
Slone had entered a wonderful region, the like of which he had not
seen--a high plateau criss-crossed in every direction by narrow canyons
with red walls a thousand feet high.

And one of the strange turning canyons opened into a vast valley of
monuments.

The plateau had weathered and washed away, leaving huge sections of
stone walls, all standing isolated, different in size and shape, but all
clean-cut, bold, with straight lines. They stood up everywhere,
monumental, towering, many-colored, lending a singular and beautiful
aspect to the great green and gray valley, billowing away to the north,
where dim, broken battlements mounted to the clouds.

The only living thing in Slone's sight was Wildfire. He shone red down
on the green slope.

Slone's heart swelled. Thi