ge little houses with dark, eyelike
windows. He wanted to climb up there. Withers called his attention to
more caves with what he believed were the ruins of cliff-dwellings. And
as they rode along the trader showed him remarkable formations of
rock where the elements were slowly hollowing out a bridge. They came
presently to a region of intersecting canyon, and here the breaking of
the trail up and down the deep washes took Withers back to his task with
the burros and gave Shefford more concern than he liked with Nack-yal.
The mustang grew unruly and was continually turning to the left.
Sometimes he tried to climb the steep slope. He had to be pulled hard
away from the opening canyon on the left. It seemed strange to Shefford
that the mustang never swerved to the right. This habit of Nack-yal's
and the increasing caution needed on the trail took all of Shefford's
attention. When he dismounted, however, he had a chance to look around,
and more and more he was amazed at the increasing proportions and
wildness of the Sagi.

He came at length to a place where a fallen tree blocked the trail. All
of the rest of the pack-train had jumped the log. But Nack-yal balked.
Shefford dismounted, pulled the bridle over the mustang's head, and
tried to lead him. Nack-yal, however, refused to budge. Whereupon
Shefford got a stick and, remounting, he gave the balky mustang a cut
across the flank. Then something violent happened. Shefford received a
sudden propelling jolt, and then he was rising into the air, and then
falling. Before he alighted he had a clear image of Nack-yal in the air
above him, bent double, and seemingly possessed of devils. Then Shefford
hit the ground with no light thud. He was thoroughly angry when he got
dizzily upon his feet, but he was not quick enough to catch the mustang.
Nack-yal leaped easily over the log and went on ahead, dragging his
bridle. Shefford hurried after him, and the faster he went just by so
much the cunning Nack-yal accelerated his gait. As the pack-train was
out of sight somewhere ahead, Shefford could not call to his companions
to halt his mount, so he gave up trying, and walked on now with free and
growing appreciation of his surroundings.

The afternoon had waned. The sun blazed low in the west in a notch of
the canyon ramparts, and one wall was darkening into purple shadow while
the other shone through a golden haze. It was a weird, wild world
to Shefford, and every few strides he caugh