“We climbed up and up and into dark canyon and wound in and out.  Then there was the narrow white trail, straight up, with the little cut steps and the great, red, ruined walls.  I looked down over Uncle Jim’s shoulder.  I saw Mother Jane dragging herself up.  Uncle Jim’s blood spotted the trail.  He reached a flat place at the top and fell with me.  Mother Jane crawled up to us.

“Then she cried out and pointed.  Tull was ’way below, climbing the trail.  His men came behind him.  Uncle Jim went to a great, tall rock and leaned against it.  There was a bloody hole in his hand.  He pushed the rock.  It rolled down, banging the loose walls.  They crashed and crashed—­then all was terrible thunder and red smoke.  I couldn’t hear —­I couldn’t see.

“Uncle Jim carried me down and down out of the dark and dust into a beautiful valley all red and gold, with a wonderful arch of stone over the entrance.

“I don’t remember well what happened then for what seemed a long, long time.  I can feel how the place looked, but not so clear as it is now in my dreams.  I seem to see myself with the dogs, and with Mother Jane, learning my letters, marking with red stone on the walls.

“But I remember now how I felt when I first understood we were shut in for ever.  Shut in Surprise Valley where Venters had lived so long.  I was glad.  The Mormons would never get me.  I was seven or eight years old then.  From that time all is clear in my mind.

“Venters had left supplies and tools and grain and cattle and burros, so we had a good start to begin life there.  He had killed off the wildcats and kept the coyotes out, so the rabbits and quail multiplied till there were thousands of them.  We raised corn and fruit, and stored what we didn’t use.  Mother Jane taught me to read and write with the soft red stone that marked well on the walls.

“The years passed.  We kept track of time pretty well.  Uncle Jim’s hair turned white and Mother Jane grew gray.  Every day was like the one before.  Mother Jane cried sometimes and Uncle Jim was sad because they could never be able to get me out of the valley.  It was long before they stopped looking and listening for some one.  Venters would come back, Uncle Jim always said.  But Mother Jane did not think so.

“I loved Surprise Valley.  I wanted to stay there always.  I remembered Cottonwoods, how the children there hated me, and I didn’t want to go back.  The only unhappy times I ever had in the valley were when Ring and Whitie, my dogs, grew old and died.  I roamed the valley.  I climbed to every nook upon the mossy ledges.  I learned to run up the steep cliffs.  I could almost stick on the straight walls.  Mother Jane called me a wild girl.  We had put away the clothes we wore when we got there, to save them, and we made clothes of skins.  I always laughed when I thought of my little dress—­how I grew out of it.  I think Uncle Jim and Mother Jane talked less as the years went by.  And after I’d learned all she could teach me we didn’t talk much.  I used to scream into the caves just to hear my voice, and the echoes would frighten me.