he had not been
found there, because no man in fear of pursuit could dwell more than a
night in so ghostly a place of solitude.

It had been late evening when Lowell had first seen the Camp of the
Stone Tepees. He remembered the half-expectant way in which he had
paused, thinking to see a white-clad priest emerge from one of the
shadowy stone tents and place a human victim upon one of the sacrificial
tablets in the open glade. It was early morning when Lowell looked on
the scene a second time. He and the sheriff had made a daylight start,
leaving the Indians to follow with the pack-horses. It was a long climb
up the slopes, among the pines, from the plains below. The trail, for
the greater part of the way, had followed a stream which was none too
easy fording at the best, and which regularly rose several inches every
afternoon owing to the daily melting of late snows in the mountain
heights. It was necessary to cross and recross the stream many times.
Occasionally the horses floundered over smooth rocks and were nearly
carried away. All four men were wet to the waist. Redmond, with memories
of countless wider and more treacherous fords crowding upon him, merely
jested at each new buffeting in the stream. The Indians were concerned
only lest some pack-animal should fall in midstream. Lowell, a good
horseman and tireless mountaineer, counted physical discomfort as
nothing when such vistas of delight were being opened up.

The giant horseshoe in the cliffs was in semi-darkness when they came in
sight of it. Lowell was in the lead, and he turned his horse and
motioned to the sheriff to remain hidden in the trees that skirted the
glade. The voice of a solitary Indian was flung back and forth in the
curve of the cliffs. His back was toward the white men. If he heard
them, he made no sign. He was wrapped in a blanket, from shoulders to
heels, and was in the midst of a long incantation, flung at the beetling
walls with their foot fringe of stone tents. The tepees of the Indians
were hardly distinguishable from those which Nature had pitched on this
world-old camping-ground. No sound came from the tents of the Indians.
Probably the "big medicine" of the Indian was being listened to, but
those who heard made no sign.

"It's Fire Bear," said Lowell, as the voice went on and the echoes
fluttered back from the cliffs.

"He's sure making big medicine," remarked the sheriff. "They've picked
one grand place for a camp. By the Lord