The trail to the upper range was wide and easy of ascent, the first of it winding under crags, the latter part climbing long slopes.  It forked before the summit, where dark pine trees showed against the sky, one fork ascending, the other, which Piute took, beginning to go down.  It admitted of no extended view, being shut in for the most part on the left, but there were times when Hare could see a curving stream of sheep on half a mile of descending trail.  Once started down the flock could not be stopped, that was as plain as Piute’s hard task.  There were times when Hare could have tossed a pebble on the Indian just below him, yet there were more than three thousand sheep, strung out in line between them.  Clouds of dust rolled up, sheets of gravel and shale rattled down the inclines, the clatter, clatter, clatter of little hoofs, the steady baa-baa-baa filled the air.  Save for the crowding of lambs off the trail, and a jamming of sheep in the corners, the drive went on without mishap.  Hare was glad to see the lambs scramble back bleating for their mothers, and to note that, though peril threatened at every steep turn, the steady down-flow always made space for the sheep behind.  He was glad, too, when through a wide break ahead his eye followed the face of a vast cliff down to the red ground below, and he knew the flock would soon be safe on the level.

A blast as from a furnace smote Hare from this open break in the wall.  The air was dust-laden, and carried besides the smell of dust and the warm breath of desert growths, a dank odor that was unpleasant.

The sheep massed in a flock on the level, and the drivers spread to their places.  The route lay under projecting red cliffs, between the base and enormous sections of wall that had broken off and fallen far out.  There was no weathering slope; the wind had carried away the smaller stones and particles, and had cut the huge pieces of pinnacle and tower into hollowed forms.  This zone of rim merged into another of strange contrast, the sloping red stream of sand which flowed from the wall of the canyon.

Piute swung the flock up to the left into an amphitheatre, and there halted.  The sheep formed a densely packed mass in the curve of the wall.  Dave Naab galloped back toward August and Hare, and before he reached them shouted out:  “The waterhole’s plugged!”

“What?” yelled his father.

“Plugged, filled with stone and sand.”

“Was it a cave-in?”

“I reckon not.  There’s been no rain.”

August spurred his roan after Dave, and Hare kept close behind them, till they reined in on a muddy bank.  What had once been a waterhole was a red and yellow heap of shale, fragments of stones, gravel, and sand.  There was no water, and the sheep were bleating.  August dismounted and climbed high above the hole to examine the slope; soon he strode down with giant steps, his huge fists clinched, shaking his gray mane like a lion.