The clatter of hoofs, the clashing of horns, the bellowing, the rumble of the wagons over the rocks and the ring of iron-shod hoofs, created a bedlam of sound, which echoed and re-echoed from the towering walls until the uproar was deafening.

Shorty, the tawny-haired giant, was riding close to Lawler.

He never had ridden the trail, though he had heard of it.  He leaned over and shouted to Lawler: 

“Kinney’s canon, ain’t it?”

Lawler nodded.

“Well,” shouted Shorty; “it’s a lulu, ain’t it?”

For a short time the trail led downward.  Then there came a level stretch, smooth, damp.  The day was hours old, and the sun was directly overhead.  But down in the depths of the canon it was cool; and a strong wind blew into the faces of the men.

The herd was perhaps an hour passing through the canon; and when Lawler and Shorty, riding side by side, emerged from the cool gloom, they saw the cattle descending a shallow gorge, going toward a wide slope which dipped into a basin of mammoth size.

Lawler knew the place; he had ridden this trail many times in the years before the coming of the railroad; and when he reached the crest of the slope and looked out into the hazy, slumbering distance, he was not surprised, though his eyes quickened with appreciation for its beauty.

Thirty miles of virgin land lay before him, basking in the white sunlight—­a green-brown bowl through which flowed a river that shimmered like silver.  The dark bases of mountains loomed above the basin at the eastern edge—­a serrated range with lofty peaks that glowed white in the blue of the sky.  South and north were other mountains—­somber, purple giants with pine-clad slopes and gleaming peaks—­majestic, immutable.

Looking down from where he sat on Red King, Lawler could see the head of the herd far down the ever-broadening trail.  The leaders were so far away that they seemed to be mere dots—­black dots moving in an emerald lake.

The cattle, too, had glimpsed the alluring green that spread before them; and at a little distance from Lawler and several of the other men they were running, eager for the descent.

“She’s a whopper, ain’t she?” said Shorty’s voice at Lawler’s side.  “I’ve seen a heap of this man’s country, but never nothin’ like that.  I reckon if the Lord had spread her out a little mite further she’d have took in mighty near the whole earth.  It’s mighty plain he wasn’t skimpin’ things none, anyway, when he made this here little hollow.”

He grinned as he rode, and then waved a sarcastic hand toward the cattle.

“Look at ’em runnin’!  You’d think, havin’ projected around this here country for a year or so, they’d be better judges.  They’re thinkin’ they’ll be buryin’ their mugs in that right pretty grass in about fifteen seconds, judgin’ from the way they’re hittin’ the breeze toward it.  An’ it’ll take them half a day to get down there.”