a race then, with the couple of miles between fugitives and
pursuers only imperceptibly lessened. Nas Ta Bega had saved his mustangs
and Shadd had ridden his to the limit. Shefford kept looking back,
gripping his rifle, hoping it would not come to a fight, yet slowly
losing that reluctance.

Sage began to show on the slope, and other kinds of brush and cedars
straggled everywhere. The great rocks loomed closer, the red color
mixed with yellow, and the slopes lengthening out, not so steep, yet
infinitely longer than they had seemed at a distance.

Shefford ceased to feel the dry wind in his face. They were already in
the lee of the wall. He could see the rock-squirrels scampering to their
holes. The mustangs valiantly held to the gait, and at last the Indian
disappeared between two rounded comers of cliff. The others were close
behind. Shefford wheeled once more. Shadd and his gang were a mile in
the rear, but coming fast, despite winded horses.

Shefford rode around the wall into a widening space thick with cedars.
It ended in a bare slope of smooth rock. Here the Indian dismounted.
When the others came up with him he told them to lead their horses and
follow. Then he began the ascent of the rock.

It was smooth and hard, though not slippery. There was not a crack.
Shefford did not see a broken piece of stone. Nas Ta Bega climbed
straight up for a while, and then wound around a swell, to turn this way
and that, always going up. Shefford began to see similar mounds of rock
all around him, of every shape that could be called a curve. There were
yellow domes far above, and small red domes far below. Ridges ran from
one hill of rock to another. There were no abrupt breaks, but holes
and pits and caves were everywhere, and occasionally, deep down, an
amphitheater green with cedar and pinyon. The Indian appeared to have
a clear idea of where he wanted to go, though there was no vestige of
a trail on those bare slopes. At length Shefford was high enough to see
back upon the plain, but the pursuers were no longer in sight.

Nas Ta Bega led to the top of that wall, only to disclose to his
followers another and a higher wall beyond, with a ridged, bare, wild,
and scalloped depression between. Here footing began to be precarious
for both man and beast. When the ascent of the second wall began it was
necessary to zigzag up, slowly and carefully, taking advantage of every
level bulge or depression. They must have consumed half a