The opposite butte took his attention and he marveled at it. Under its lava cap and the great layer of the limestones was a greater layer of clay and shale and the softer sandstones. These had been harassed and battered by the winds and rains and frosts of ages and the resulting erosion had chiseled out wonderful bits of natural sculpturing. At one place he could see, and with no very great strain upon his imagination, part of a massive building with its great buttresses, where a harder, more enduring streak of rock had offered greater resistance to the everlasting assaults. Farther to the right was a wonderful collection of columns and pinnacles, and some of the openings between them ran back until shrouded in darkness; great caverns in which houses could be built. As the sun sank lower the shadow effect was beautiful, and even Johnny's practical mind was impressed by it. The color effect he had seen before--the streaks of black, gray, red, green, maroon, and white. Bits of crystal and quartz were set afire by the sun's slanting rays and some of them almost dazzled him. To the west the sky was a blaze of color and the lengthening shadows made an ever-changing picture. Below him the dusk was beginning to shroud the bottom of the canyon, creeping higher and higher as the minutes passed. To see better, he wriggled closer to the edge, and a venomous whine passed over his head to die out swiftly in the air. "Huh!" he grunted. "Fine target I must 'a' been for that thief down there, with such a sky behind me. I've got to remember things up here, or I'll lose my rememberer. I'm on a skyline that _is_ a skyline. An' I ain't goin' to answer every fool that cuts loose at me, neither. I got plenty of cartridges, but I won't have if I start gettin' foolish with 'em. An' before dark I'm goin' to rustle me a blanket; it's gettin' cooler by jumps." He made another visit to the south side of the butte for a glance down the trail of misery, and then dismissed it from his mind. In view of his experiences with it in daylight, he knew that no human being could climb it in the dark. "It's as safe, day _an'_ night, as if Red or Hoppy was layin' right here--an' that's plenty good enough for me," he smiled. "William, Junior's, bobcat kitten won't never grow big enough to climb that place--an' it's th' only thing on earth that he can't climb, blast him!" Returning to his camp he had a drink and a smoke, and then, taking up a blanket and a pan of cold beans, he went to the head of the trail, there to keep a long and wearisome vigil.