t his breath and tried to
realize actuality was not a dream.

Nack-yal kept about a hundred paces to the fore and ever and anon he
looked back to see how his new master was progressing. He varied these
occasions by reaching down and nipping a tuft of grass. Evidently he was
too intelligent to go on fast enough to be caught by Withers. Also he
kept continually looking up the slope to the left as if seeking a way to
climb out of the valley in that direction. Shefford thought it was
well the trail lay at the foot of a steep slope that ran up to unbroken
bluffs.

The sun set and the canyon lost its red and its gold and deepened its
purple. Shefford calculated he had walked five miles, and though he did
not mind the effort, he would rather have ridden Nack-yal into camp.
He mounted a cedar ridge, crossed some sandy washes, turned a corner of
bold wall to enter a wide, green level. The mustangs were rolling and
snorting. He heard the bray of a burro. A bright blaze of camp-fire
greeted him, and the dark figure of the Indian approached to intercept
and catch Nack-yal. When he stalked into camp Withers wore a beaming
smile, and Joe Lake, who was on his knees making biscuit dough in a pan,
stopped proceedings and drawled:

"Reckon Nack-yal bucked you off."

"Bucked! Was that it? Well, he separated himself from me in a new and
somewhat painful manner--to me."

"Sure, I saw that in his eye," replied Lake; and Withers laughed with
him.

"Nack-yal never was well broke," he said. "But he's a good mustang,
nothing like Joe's Navvy or that gray mare Dynamite. All this Indian
stock will buck on a man once in a while."

"I'll take the bucking along with the rest," said Shefford. Both men
liked his reply, and the Indian smiled for the first time.

Soon they all sat round a spread tarpaulin and ate like wolves. After
supper came the rest and talk before the camp-fire. Joe Lake was droll;
he said the most serious things in a way to make Shefford wonder if
he was not joking. Withers talked about the canyon, the Indians, the
mustangs, the scorpions running out of the heated sand; and to Shefford
it was all like a fascinating book. Nas Ta Bega smoked in silence, his
brooding eyes upon the fire.

V. ON THE TRAIL

Shefford was awakened next morning by a sound he had never heard
before--the plunging of hobbled horses on soft turf. It was clear
daylight, with a ruddy color in the sky and a tinge of red along the
canyon rim. H