"I was follerin' Creech jest to find out where he'd hole up with the girl." "What's Cordts's game--AFTER he heads Joel Creech?" "Then he's goin' fer the girl." Slone scarcely needed to be told all this, but the deliberate words from the lips of one of Cordts's gang bore a raw, brutal proof of Lucy's peril. And yet Slone could not bring himself to kill this man in cold blood. He tried, but in vain. "Have you got a gun?" called Slone, hoarsely. "Sure." "Ride back the other way! ... If you don't lose me I'll kill you!" The man stared. Slone saw the color return to his pale face. Then he turned his horse and rode back out of sight. Slone heard him rolling the stones down the long, rough slope; and when he felt sure the horse-thief had gotten a fair start he went back to mount Wildfire in pursuit. This trailer of Lucy never got back to Lucy's trail--never got away. But Slone, when that day's hard, deadly pursuit ended, found himself lost in the canyons. How bitterly he cursed both his weakness in not shooting the man at sight, and his strength in following him with implacable purpose! For to be fair, to give the horse-thief a chance for his life, Slone had lost Lucy's trail. The fact nearly distracted him. He spent a sleepless night of torture. All next day, like a wild man, he rode and climbed and descended, spurred by one purpose, pursued by suspense and dread. That night he tied Wildfire near water and grass and fell into the sleep of exhaustion. Morning came. But with it no hope. He had been desperate. And now he was in a frightful state. It seemed that days and days had passed, and nights that were hideous with futile nightmares. He rode down into a canyon with sloping walls, and broken, like all of these canyons under the great plateau. Every canyon resembled another. The upland was one vast network. The world seemed a labyrinth of canyons among which he was hopelessly lost. What would--what had become of Lucy? Every thought in his whirling brain led back to that--and it was terrible. Then--he was gazing transfixed down upon the familiar tracks left by Creech's mustangs. Days old, but still unfollowed! CHAPTER XIX That track led up the narrowing canyon to its head at the base of the plateau. Slone, mindful of his horse, climbed on foot, halting at the zigzag turns to rest. A long, gradually ascending trail mounted the last slope, which when close at hand was not so precipitous as it appeared from below. Up there the wind, sucked out of the canyons, swooped and twisted hard. At last Slone led Wildfire over the rim and halted for another breathing-spell. Before him was a beautiful, gently sloping stretch of waving grass leading up to the dark pine forest from which came a roar of wind. Beneath Slone the wild and whorled canyon breaks extended, wonderful in thousands of denuded surfaces, gold and red and yellow, with the smoky depths between.