“Yaas; the dawgs run him into a leetle box canyon back thar in Cheyo--an’ you can steal my hoss if thar ain’t Sid, ez ornery and ez nat’ral ez ever! I told ye not to worry, Colonel,” he wagged his head. “Thet rope’s still waitin’ for him! He clumb up thar, an’ then he couldn’t git out again. The varmint’s got a lair in that canyon, too, in a cave behind some of them cliff houses.” “So you didn’t get him, eh? That’s bad!” said Colonel Colvin, disappointedly. “He’ll come back for some more lamb in a day or so. I’ve sent for Major Hinchman, but he’ll get here too late to do any good, for the Indians are so wrought up that they’re like to throw Niltci into the big fire if anything goes wrong during the ceremonies. He and Neyani are to be leaders in it, so they’ll be right in the limelight. “I tell you what we’ll do!” exclaimed the Colonel suddenly, as they walked the horses toward the hogan, “we’ll break camp right now, and get everything ready for the ride across the desert to the Grand Canyon. Then if things go wrong at the dance we’ll watch our chance and get Niltci away and take him with us across the desert, until this business blows over. You, Sid and Scotty, keep near him. Watch where they put him if they tie him up; get him free and join us out on the plain, as it will be pitch dark. We’ll start right out and put fifty miles between us and this hogan during the night. I’ll strike for Lee’s Ferry on the Big Colorado.” Sid and Scotty winked at each other gleefully. A cutting-out party of this nature was right in their line! Big John and the Colonel rode on to their camp, while the boys dismounted at the hogan and went inside. Neither Neyani nor Niltci were anywhere in sight, for they were off in the brush somewhere, dressing for their parts. But a group of old medicine men were making sand paintings on the floor of the hogan, pouring various colored sands deftly through their fingers. The boys looked around curiously, at the huge beams of the hogan slanting up overhead and the square smoke hole over a small fire in the center which gave light for the sand-painting ceremonies. Around the walls ran a log-and-clay shelf which served as both bench and sleeping bunks. Pottery water jars stood in the corners, with granary baskets of corn and pinyon nuts and bowls of corn meal. The young girl knelt beside the fire, making _piké_ bread by pouring a thin batter deftly through a crack in her fingers on a smooth, hot stone. As fast as a layer cooked she rolled it around itself and spread a fresh batch. Paper-thin pancakes of corn meal were they! Her mother crouched in a corner, grinding meal in a stone trough with a long stone pestle.