The hills fell away even more abruptly here than they did in the north, cut so often into straight, stratified brown cliffs of crumbling dirt that Conniston wondered how and where the road could find a way out and down into the lower land.  They swept away, both east and west, in a wide curve, roughly resembling a half moon.  Toward the east, perhaps twenty-five miles from where Conniston sat upon his horse, the distant mountains sent out two far-reaching spurs of pine-clad ridges between which lay Rattlesnake Valley.  Due south, as Lonesome Pete’s outstretched finger indicated, lay the road which they were to follow and the headquarters of the Half Moon.  There again a thickly timbered spur of the mountains ran down into the plain on each side of a deeply cleft canon from which Lonesome Pete told them that Indian Creek issued, and in which were the main corrals and the range house of the Half Moon.

“Which is sure the finest up-an’-down cow-country I ever see,” he added, by way of rounding off his information.  “Bein’ well watered by that same crick, an’ havin’ good feed both in the Big Flat, as folks calls that country down below us, an’ in the foothills.  Rattlesnake Valley, over yonder, ain’t never been good for much exceptin’ the finest breed of serpents an’ horn-toads a man ever see outside a circus or the jimjams.  There ain’t nothin’ as ’ll grow there outside them animals.  The ol’ man’s workin’ over there now, tryin’ to throw water on it an’ make things grow.  The ol’ man,” he ended, shaking his head dubiously, “has put acrost some big jobs, but I reckon he’s sorta up against it this trip.”

“Reclamation work,” nodded Conniston.

“That’s what some folks calls it.  Others calls it plumb foolishness.  Git up, there, Lady!  Stan’ aroun’, you pinto hoss!”

An hour more of winding in and out, back and forth, along the narrow grade cut into the sides of the hills, just wide enough for one team at the time, with here and there a wider place where wagons might meet and pass, and they were down in the Half Moon country.  The cowboy let his horses out into a swinging trot; Conniston followed just far enough behind to escape their dust; and the miles slipped swiftly behind them.

They had crossed the floor of the lower Half Moon and were moving up a gentle slope leading along the spur of the mountains to the right of Indian Creek when they met one of the Half Moon cowboys driving a small band of saddle-horses ahead of him.  Lonesome Pete stopped for a word with him, and Conniston, seeing the road plain ahead, rode on alone.  A mile farther and he had entered the forest of pines through which the road lay, winding and twisting to avoid the boles of the larger trees or the big scattered boulders which were many upon the steepening slope.  Now he could seldom see more than a hundred yards in front of him, and now he had left the stifling heat behind him for the cool shadows which made a dim twilight of midday.