Shefford received a sudden propelling jolt, and then he was rising into the air, and then falling.  Before he alighted he had a clear image of Nack-yal in the air above him, bent double, and seemingly possessed of devils.  Then Shefford hit the ground with no light thud.  He was thoroughly angry when he got dizzily upon his feet, but he was not quick enough to catch the mustang.  Nack-yal leaped easily over the log and went on ahead, dragging his bridle.  Shefford hurried after him, and the faster he went just by so much the cunning Nack-yal accelerated his gait.  As the pack-train was out of sight somewhere ahead, Shefford could not call to his companions to halt his mount, so he gave up trying, and walked on now with free and growing appreciation of his surroundings.

The afternoon had waned.  The sun blazed low in the west in a notch of the canyon ramparts, and one wall was darkening into purple shadow while the other shone through a golden haze.  It was a weird, wild world to Shefford, and every few strides he caught his breath and tried to realize actuality was not a dream.

Nack-yal kept about a hundred paces to the fore and ever and anon he looked back to see how his new master was progressing.  He varied these occasions by reaching down and nipping a tuft of grass.  Evidently he was too intelligent to go on fast enough to be caught by Withers.  Also he kept continually looking up the slope to the left as if seeking a way to climb out of the valley in that direction.  Shefford thought it was well the trail lay at the foot of a steep slope that ran up to unbroken bluffs.

The sun set and the canyon lost its red and its gold and deepened its purple.  Shefford calculated he had walked five miles, and though he did not mind the effort, he would rather have ridden Nack-yal into camp.  He mounted a cedar ridge, crossed some sandy washes, turned a corner of bold wall to enter a wide, green level.  The mustangs were rolling and snorting.  He heard the bray of a burro.  A bright blaze of camp-fire greeted him, and the dark figure of the Indian approached to intercept and catch Nack-yal.  When he stalked into camp Withers wore a beaming smile, and Joe Lake, who was on his knees making biscuit dough in a pan, stopped proceedings and drawled: 

“Reckon Nack-yal bucked you off.”

“Bucked!  Was that it?  Well, he separated himself from me in a new and somewhat painful manner—­to me.”

“Sure, I saw that in his eye,” replied Lake; and Withers laughed with him.

“Nack-yal never was well broke,” he said.  “But he’s a good mustang, nothing like Joe’s Navvy or that gray mare Dynamite.  All this Indian stock will buck on a man once in a while.”

“I’ll take the bucking along with the rest,” said Shefford.  Both men liked his reply, and the Indian smiled for the first time.

Soon they all sat round a spread tarpaulin and ate like wolves.  After supper came the rest and talk before the camp-fire.  Joe Lake was droll; he said the most serious things in a way to make Shefford wonder if he was not joking.  Withers talked about the canyon, the Indians, the mustangs, the scorpions running out of the heated sand; and to Shefford it was all like a fascinating book.  Nas Ta Bega smoked in silence, his brooding eyes upon the fire.