For it was a dell, a glorious one too, with its patches of dark pines climbing the hillside slopes and scaling the painted cliffs, its groves of bright quaking aspens, its meadows of mountain grass, knee-deep, out of whose tasseled green, fringed daisies, pink geraniums, bluebells, waxy columbines, and a hundred other kinds of wild flowers shone in starry profusion. An artist’s heart would have leaped to see the picture that night when the sun, slowly wheeling down the west, flooded the dell with light, tinting with gold and pink and purple the cliffs and sleepy clouds that lingered and smiled brightly out of the clear blue above. The tawny-topped wigwams pitched carelessly about among the open groves, the dusky savages variously grouped about the fires, the contented vari-colored ponies feasting on the fragrant meadows--all together made such a picture as might thrill the soul of a master. But it was not the charms of the scene that had drawn Old Copperhead into this delightful cove. The place just now offered another more vital attraction for him and his band--safety from pursuit. It gave them a surer base of operations in the new business that they, under the lead of Bud Nixon, had begun. It was a perfect robber’s roost for the cattle-thieving outlaws. From this vantage place, by climbing to a certain point they could command a full view of the valley below. Should they be pursued, the gorge offered a fine chance to ambush the enemy and beat him back. With luxuriant grass in plenty and the purest of water, with berries in abundance, with trout enough to feed many multitudes, and with elk, deer, and other big game all around them, there was no need for man or beast to go hungry. There was little excuse, indeed, for the cattle-stealing and other mischief they had begun. This part of the program, however, fathered in the spirit of revenge by Nixon, grew and thrived on the spirit of dare-deviltry in the Indians. It was native sport for them to steal out into the valley and lift the fat steer or heifer from right under the ranchers’ noses, drive the beast into the brush and kill it, then slip back with the meat, unobserved, much less caught. How they would chuckle over their exploits at night around the wigwam fires as they told with much bragging about their daring fun. Nixon fattened on the success his thick-headed smartness was bringing him. The Indians were growing to look upon Ankanamp as a “heap big chief.” Old Copperhead had some cause to be a little jealous of the white man’s waxing popularity; but he was too crafty to let such a feeling show, if he had it. Bud was a good tool to work out the Redskin’s revenge against the whites. If the tool got too sharp, it would not be hard to do away with it some dark night.