Slone hurried onward, to be blocked by a huge crack in the rocky plateau.  This he had to head.  And then another and like obstacle checked his haste to reach that promontory.  He was forced to go more slowly.  Wildfire had been close only as to sight.  And this was the great canyon that dwarfed distance and magnified proximity.  Climbing down and up, toiling on, he at last learned patience.  He had seen Wildfire at close range.  That was enough.  So he plodded on, once more returning to careful regard of Nagger.  It took an hour of work to reach the point where Wildfire had disappeared.

A promontory indeed it was, overhanging a valley a thousand feet below.  A white torrent of a stream wound through it.  There were lines of green cottonwoods following the winding course.  Then Slone saw Wildfire slowly crossing the flat toward the stream.  He had gone down that cliff, which to Slone looked perpendicular.

Wildfire appeared to be walking lame.  Slone, making sure of this, suffered a pang.  Then, when the significance of such lameness dawned upon him he whooped his wild joy and waved his hat.  The red stallion must have heard, for he looked up.  Then he went on again and waded into the stream, where he drank long.  When he started to cross, the swift current drove him back in several places.  The water wreathed white around him.  But evidently it was not deep, and finally he crossed.  From the other side he looked up again at Nagger and Slone, and, going on, he soon was out of sight in the cottonwoods.

“How to get down!” muttered Slone.

There was a break in the cliff wall, a bare stone slant where horses had gone down and come up.  That was enough for Slone to know.  He would have attempted the descent if he were sure no other horse but Wildfire had ever gone down there.  But Slone’s hair began to rise stiff on his head.  A horse like Wildfire, and mountain sheep and Indian ponies, were all very different from Nagger.  The chances were against Nagger.

“Come on, old boy.  If I can do it, you can,” he said.

Slone had never seen a trail as perilous as this.  He was afraid for his horse.  A slip there meant death.  The way Nagger trembled in every muscle showed his feelings.  But he never flinched.  He would follow Slone anywhere, providing Slone rode him or led him.  And here, as riding was impossible, Slone went before.  If the horse slipped there would be a double tragedy, for Nagger would knock his master off the cliff.  Slone set his teeth and stepped down.  He did not let Nagger see his fear.  He was taking the greatest risk he had ever run.