s instinct
for ground he had once covered.

Still Shefford began to worry, and finally dropped back to question Nas
Ta Bega.

"Bi Nai, she has the eye of a Navajo," replied the Indian. "Look!
Iron-shod horses have passed here. See the marks in the stone?"

Shefford indeed made out faint cut tracks that would have escaped his
own sight. They had been made long ago, but they were unmistakable.

"She's following the trail by memory--she must remember the stones,
trees, sage, cactus," said Shefford in surprise.

"Pictures in her mind," replied the Indian.

Thereafter the farther she progressed the less at fault she appeared and
the faster she traveled. She made several miles an hour, and about
the middle of the afternoon entered upon the more broken region of the
plateau. View became restricted. Low walls, and ruined cliffs of red
rock with cedars at their base, and gullies growing into canyon and
canyon opening into larger ones--these were passed and crossed and
climbed and rimmed in travel that grew more difficult as the going
became wilder. Then there was a steady ascent, up and up all the time,
though not steep, until another level, green with cedar and pinyon, was
reached.

It reminded Shefford of the forest near the mouth of the Sagi. It was so
dense he could not see far ahead of Fay, and often he lost sight of her
entirely. Presently he rode out of the forest into a strip of purple
sage. It ended abruptly, and above that abrupt line, seemingly far away,
rose a long, red wall. Instantly he recognized that to be the opposite
wall of a canyon which as yet he could not see.

Fay was acting strangely and he hurried forward. She slipped off
Nack-yal and fell, sprang up and ran wildly, to stand upon a promontory,
her arms uplifted, her hair a mass of moving gold in the wind, her
attitude one of wild and eloquent significance.

Shefford ran, too, and as he ran the red wall in his eager sight seemed
to enlarge downward, deeper and deeper, and then it merged into a strip
of green.

Suddenly beneath him yawned a red-walled gulf, a deceiving gulf seen
through transparent haze, a softly shining green-and-white valley,
strange, wild, beautiful, like a picture in his memory.

"Surprise Valley!" he cried, in wondering recognition.

Fay Larkin waved her arms as if they were wings to carry her swiftly
downward, and her plaintive cry fitted the wildness of her manner and
the lonely height where she leaned.

Shefford dr