tural help it came to, and then it shot
along the mountain-side for a thousand feet, traversing a mere ledge,
where one formation of rock projected out below another and made a shelf
for it to go upon. If a man had fallen from that shelf he would have
gone down a tremendous depth upon jagged rocks at the bottom of the
canon.

Two Arrows wasted no time in useless observations or admiration. Where
herd after herd of wild cattle had tramped before him he could surely
follow, and at the end of that ledge the road began to descend. The
descent was gradual, and uncommonly free from breakages. It led, before
a great while, once more to the bottom of the gorge. Several times Two
Arrows saw "big-horn" or Rocky Mountain sheep among the rocks above him,
far out of the reach of his arrows. He felt a longing for antelope
venison, but there was no use in trying to catch one of those fellows.
Hotter than anything else he felt the fever and fire of his ambition,
stirring him to push on and do more than he had ever heard of as done by
any other boy of his age among all the bands of his nation. It made him
walk fast and firmly in the bracing mountain air, and he drew his breath
somewhat quickly at times, when he thought of the wonderful things
which might be before him. He had no watch, but just as the sun stood
nearly over his head, or, rather, over the middle of the great gorge, he
could see that this was beginning to grow broader and not so steep. It
was promising to lead out into something, and One-eye dashed on ahead as
if to ascertain what it might be. Two Arrows stood still for a moment
and watched him, and then he started as if something had pricked him.
The dog was crouching and creeping as if he had his remaining eye upon
game of some sort or on danger. His master also crouched and crept,
slipping forward rapidly from rock to rock. In three minutes more he lay
beside One-eye, and they both had something worth while to look at. Not
more than three hundred yards beyond them, on the crest of a rocky ledge
that came out from the mountain-side like an abutment, stood a big-horn
antelope. He had seen One-eye and was looking at him. He may have been
studying whether or not it could be needful for an antelope away up
where he was to spring away any farther from a dog and an Indian boy. He
had better have been looking behind him and above him, for his real
danger was not in the quiver of Two Arrows; it was crouching upon a
higher fragme