Joe Lake dubiously shook his head.  Manifestly the Surprise Valley part of the situation presented a new and serious obstacle.  It changed the whole thing.  To try to take the three out by way of Kayenta and Durango was not to be thought of, for reasons he briefly stated.  The Red Lake trail was the only one left, and if that were taken the chances were against Shefford.  It was five days over sand to Red Lake—­impossible to hide a trail—­and even with a day’s start Shefford could not escape the hard-riding men who would come from Stonebridge.  Besides, after reaching Red Lake, there were days and days of desert-travel needful to avoid places like Blue Canyon, Tuba, Moencopie, and the Indian villages.

“We’ll have to risk all that,” declared Shefford, desperately.

“It’s a fool risk,” retorted Joe.  “Listen.  By tomorrow noon all of Stonebridge, more or less, will be riding in here.  You’ve got to get away to-night with the girl—­or never!  And to-morrow you’ve got to find that Lassiter and the woman in Surprise Valley.  This valley must be back, deep in the canyon country.  Well, you’ve got to come out this way again.  No trail through here would be safe.  Why, you’d put all your heads in a rope! . . .  You mustn’t come through this way.  It’ll have to be tried across country, off the trails, and that means hell—­ day-and-night travel, no camp, no feed for horses—­maybe no water.  Then you’ll have the best trackers in Utah like hounds on your trail.”

When the Mormon ceased his forceful speech there was a silence fraught with hopeless meaning.  He bowed his head in gloom.  Shefford, growing sick again to his marrow, fought a cold, hateful sense of despair.

“Bi Nai!” In his extremity he called to the Indian.

“The Navajo has heard,” replied Nas Ta Bega, strangely speaking in his own language.

With a long, slow heave of breast Shefford felt his despair leave him.  In the Indian lay his salvation.  He knew it.  Joe Lake caught the subtle spirit of the moment and looked up eagerly.

Nas Ta Bega stretched an arm toward the east, and spoke in Navajo.  But Shefford, owing to the hurry and excitement of his mind, could not translate.  Joe Lake listened, gave a violent start, leaped up with all his big frame quivering, and then fired question after question at the Indian.  When the Navajo had replied to all, Joe drew himself up as if facing an irrevocable decision which would wring his very soul.  What did he cast off in that moment?  What did he grapple with?  Shefford had no means to tell, except by the instinct which baffled him.  But whether the Mormon’s trial was one of spiritual rending or the natural physical fear of a perilous, virtually impossible venture, the fact was he was magnificent in his acceptance of it.  He turned to Shefford, white, cold, yet glowing.

“Nas Ta Bega believes he can take you down a canyon to the big river—­ the Colorado.  He knows the head of this canyon.  Nonnezoshe Boco it’s called—­canyon of the rainbow bridge.  He has never been down it.  Only two or three living Indians have ever seen the great stone bridge.  But all have heard of it.  They worship it as a god.  There’s water runs down this canyon and water runs to the river.  Nas Ta Bega thinks he can take you down to the river.”