All next day, like a wild man, he rode and climbed and descended, spurred by one purpose, pursued by suspense and dread.  That night he tied Wildfire near water and grass and fell into the sleep of exhaustion.

Morning came.  But with it no hope.  He had been desperate.  And now he was in a frightful state.  It seemed that days and days had passed, and nights that were hideous with futile nightmares.

He rode down into a canyon with sloping walls, and broken, like all of these canyons under the great plateau.  Every canyon resembled another.  The upland was one vast network.  The world seemed a labyrinth of canyons among which he was hopelessly lost.  What would—­what had become of Lucy?  Every thought in his whirling brain led back to that—­and it was terrible.

Then—­he was gazing transfixed down upon the familiar tracks left by Creech’s mustangs.  Days old, but still unfollowed!

CHAPTER XIX

That track led up the narrowing canyon to its head at the base of the plateau.

Slone, mindful of his horse, climbed on foot, halting at the zigzag turns to rest.  A long, gradually ascending trail mounted the last slope, which when close at hand was not so precipitous as it appeared from below.  Up there the wind, sucked out of the canyons, swooped and twisted hard.

At last Slone led Wildfire over the rim and halted for another breathing-spell.  Before him was a beautiful, gently sloping stretch of waving grass leading up to the dark pine forest from which came a roar of wind.  Beneath Slone the wild and whorled canyon breaks extended, wonderful in thousands of denuded surfaces, gold and red and yellow, with the smoky depths between.

Wildfire sniffed the wind and snorted.  Slone turned, instantly alert.  The wild horse had given an alarm.  Like a flash Slone leaped into the saddle.  A faint cry, away from the wind, startled Slone.  It was like a cry he had heard in dreams.  How overstrained his perceptions!  He was not really sure of anything, yet on the instant he was tense.

Straggling cedars on his left almost wholly obstructed Slone’s view.  Wildfire’s ears and nose were pointed that way.  Slone trotted him down toward the edge of this cedar clump so that he could see beyond.  Before he reached it, however, he saw something blue, moving, waving, lifting.

“Smoke!” muttered Slone.  And he thought more of the danger of fire on that windy height than he did of another peril to himself.

Wildfire was hard to hold as he rounded the edge of the cedars.

Slone saw a line of leaping flame, a line of sweeping smoke, the grass on fire . . . horses!—­a man!

Wildfire whistled his ringing blast of hate and menace, his desert challenge to another stallion.

The man whirled to look.

Slone saw Joel Creech—­and Sage King—­and Lucy, half naked, bound on his back!