No sign of a trail showed where the base of the slope rolled out to meet the green plain.  The earth was gravelly, with dark patches of heavy silt, almost like cinders; and round, black rocks, flinty and glassy, cracked away from the hoofs of the mustangs.  There was a level bench a mile wide, then a ravine, and then an ascent, and after that, rounded ridge and ravine, one after the other, like huge swells of a monstrous sea.  Indian paint-brush vied in its scarlet hue with the deep magenta of cactus.  There was no sage.  Soapweed and meager grass and a bunch of cactus here and there lent the green to that barren; and it was green only at a distance.  Nas Ta Bega kept on a steady, even trot.  The sun climbed.  The wind rose and whipped dust from under the mustangs.

Shefford looked back often, and the farther out in the plain he reached the higher loomed the plateau they had descended; and as he faced ahead again the lower sank the red-domed and castled horizon to the fore.  The ravines became deeper, with dry rock bottoms, and the ridge-tops sharper, with outcroppings of yellow, crumbling ledges.  Once across the central depression of that plain a gradual ascent became evident, and the round rocks grew clearer in sight, began to rise shine and grow.  And thereafter every slope brought them nearer.

The sun was straight overhead and hot when Nas Ta Bega halted the party under the first lonely scrub-cedar.  They all dismounted to stretch their limbs, and rest the horses.  It was not a talkative group, Lassiter’s comments on the never-ending green plain elicited no response.  Jane Withersteen looked afar with the past in her eyes.  Shefford felt Fay’s wistful glance and could not meet it; indeed, he seemed to want to hide something from her.  The Indian bent a falcon gaze on the distant slope, and Shefford did not like that intent, searching, steadfast watchfulness.  Suddenly Nas Ta Bega stiffened and whipped the halter he held.

“Ugh!” he exclaimed.

All eyes followed the direction of his dark hand.  Puffs of dust rose from the base of the long slope they had descended; tiny dark specks moved with the pace of a snail.

“Shadd!” added the Indian.

“I expected it,” said Shefford, darkly, as he rose.

“An’ who’s Shadd?” drawled Lassiter in his cool, slow speech.

Briefly Shefford explained, and then, looking at Nas Ta Bega, he added: 

“The hardest-riding outfit in the country!  We can’t get away from them.”

Jane Withersteen was silent, but Fay uttered a low cry.  Shefford did not look at either of them.  The Indian began swiftly to tighten the saddle-cinches of his roan, and Shefford did likewise for Nack-yal.  Then Shefford drew his rifle out of the saddle-sheath and Joe Lake’s big guns from the saddle-bag.

“Here, Lassiter, maybe you haven’t forgotten how to use these,” he said.