Shefford slid down upon a grassy bank, and finding the tracks of the horses, he followed them.  They led along the wall.  As soon as he had assured himself that Nas Ta Bega had gone down the canyon he abandoned the tracks and pushed ahead swiftly.  He heard the soft rush of running water.  In the center of the canyon wound heavy lines of bright-green foliage, bordering a rocky brook.  The air was close, warm, and sweet with perfume of flowers.  The walls were low and shelving, and soon lost that rounded appearance peculiar to the wind-worn slopes above.  Shefford came to where the horses had plowed down a gravelly bank into the clear, swift water of the brook.  The little pools of water were still muddy.  Shefford drank, finding the water cold and sweet, without the bitter bite of alkali.  He crossed and pushed on, running on the grassy levels.  Flowers were everywhere, but he did not notice them particularly.  The canyon made many leisurely turns, and its size, if it enlarged at all, was not perceptible to him yet.  The rims above him were perhaps fifty feet high.  Cottonwood-trees began to appear along the brook, and blossoming buck-brush in the corners of wall.

He had traveled perhaps a mile when Nas Ta Bega, appearing to come out of the thicket, confronted him.

“Hello!” called Shefford.  “Where’re Fay—­and the others?”

The Indian made a gesture that signified the rest of the party were beyond a little way.  Shefford took Nas Ta Bega’s arm, and as they walked, and he panted for breath, he told what had happened back on the slopes.

The Indian made one of his singular speaking sweeps of hand, and he scrutinized Shefford’s face, but he received the news in silence.  They turned a corner of wall, crossed a wide, shallow, boulder-strewn place in the brook, and mounted the bank to a thicket.  Beyond this, from a clump of cottonwoods, Lassiter strode out with a gun in each hand.  He had been hiding.

“Shore I’m glad to see you,” he said, and the eyes that piercingly fixed on Shefford were now as keen as formerly they had been mild.

“Gone!  Lassiter—­they’re gone,” broke out Shefford.  “Where’s Fay—­ and Jane?”

Lassiter called, and presently the women came out of the thick brake, and Fay bounded forward with her swift stride, while Jane followed with eager step and anxious face.  Then they all surrounded Shefford.

“It was Shadd—­and his gang,” panted Shefford.  “Eight in all.  Three or four Piutes—­the others outlaws.  They lost track of us.  Went below the place—­where they shot at us.  And they came up—­on a bad slope.”

Shefford described the slope and the deep chasm and how Shadd led up to the point where he saw his mistake and then how the catastrophe fell.

“I shot—­and missed,” repeated Shefford, with the sweat in beads on his pale face.  “I missed Shadd.  Maybe I hit the horse.  He plunged —­reared—­fell back—­a terrible fall—­right upon that bunch of horses and men below. . . .  In a horrible, wrestling, screaming tangle they slid over the rim!  I don’t know how many.  I saw some men running along.  I saw three other horses plunging.  One slipped and went over. . . .  I have no idea how many, but Shadd and some of his gang went to destruction.”