excuse to jump might have mistaken it for
a rattlesnake. Nack-yal appeared disposed to be satisfied, and gave
Shefford no trouble in mounting. The incident increased Shefford's
dubiousness. These Arizona mustangs were unknown quantities.

Thereafter Shefford had an eye for the trail rather than the scenery,
and this continued till the pack-train entered the mouth of the Sagi.
Then those wonderful lofty cliffs, with their peaks and towers and
spires, loomed so close and so beautiful that he did not care if
Nack-yal did throw him. Along here, however, the mustang behaved well,
and presently Shefford decided that if it had been otherwise he would
have walked. The trail suddenly stood on end and led down into the deep
wash, where some days before he had seen the stream of reddish water.
This day there appeared to be less water and it was not so red. Nack-yal
sank deep as he took short and careful steps down. The burros and other
mustangs were drinking, and Nack-yal followed suit. The Indian, with a
hand clutching his mustang's mane, rode up a steep, sandy slope on the
other side that Shefford would not have believed any horse could climb.
The burros plodded up and over the rim, with Withers calling to them.
Joe Lake swung his rope and cracked the flanks of the gray mare and the
red mule; and the way the two kicked was a revelation and a warning to
Shefford. When his turn came to climb the trail he got off and walked,
an action that Nack-yal appeared fully to appreciate.

From the head of this wash the trail wound away up the widening canyon,
through greasewood flats and over greasy levels and across sandy
stretches. The looming walls made the valley look narrow, yet it must
have been half a mile wide. The slopes under the cliffs were dotted with
huge stones and cedar-trees. There were deep indentations in the walls,
running back to form box canyon, choked with green of cedar and spruce
and pinyon. These notches haunted Shefford, and he was ever on the
lookout for more of them.

Withers came back to ride just in advance and began to talk.

"Reckon this Sagi canyon is your Deception Pass," he said. "It's sure
a queer hole. I've been lost more than once, hunting mustangs in here.
I've an idea Nas Ta Bega knows all this country. He just pointed out
a cliff-dwelling to me. See it?... There 'way up in that cave of the
wall."

Shefford saw a steep, rough slope leading up to a bulge of the cliff,
and finally he made out stran