For a wonder Wildfire allowed himself to be led as well as if he had been old, faithful Nagger.  Slone could not keep close in to the wall for very long, on account of the cedars, but he managed to stay in the outer edge of shadow cast by the wall.  Wildfire winded the horses, halted, threw up his head.  But for some reason beyond Slone the horse did not snort or whistle.  As he knew Wildfire he could have believed him intelligent enough and hateful enough to betray his master.

It was one of the other horses that whistled an alarm.  This came at a point almost even with the camp-fire.  Slone, holding Wildfire down, had no time to get into a stirrup, but leaped to the saddle and let the horse go.  There were hoarse yells and then streaks of fire and shots.  Slone heard the whizz of heavy bullets, and he feared for Wildfire.  But the horse drew swiftly away into the darkness.  Slone could not see whether the ground was smooth or broken, and he left that to Wildfire.  Luck favored them, and presently Slone pulled him in to a safe gait, and regretted only that he had not had a chance to take a shot at that camp.

Slone walked the horse for an hour, and then decided that he could well risk a halt for the night.

Before dawn he was up, warming his chilled body by violent movements, and forcing himself to eat.

The rim of the west wall changed from gray to pink.  A mocking-bird burst into song.  A coyote sneaked away from the light of day.  Out in the open Slone found the trail made by Creech’s mustangs and by the horse of Cordts’s man.  The latter could not be very far ahead.  In less than an hour Slone came to a clump of cedars where this man had camped.  An hour behind him!

This canyon was open, with a level and narrow floor divided by a deep wash.  Slone put Wildfire to a gallop.  The narrow wash was no obstacle to Wildfire; he did not have to be urged or checked.  It was not long before Slone saw a horseman a quarter of a mile ahead, and he was discovered almost at the same time.  This fellow showed both surprise and fear.  He ran his horse.  But in comparison with Wildfire that horse seemed sluggish.  Slone would have caught up with him very soon but for a change in the lay of the land.  The canyon split up and all of its gorges and ravines and washes headed upon the pine-fringed plateau, now only a few miles distant.  The gait of the horses had to be reduced to a trot, and then a walk.  The man Slone was after left Creech’s trail and took to a side cleft.  Slone, convinced he would soon overhaul him, and then return to take up Creech’s trail, kept on in pursuit.  Then Slone was compelled to climb.  Wildfire was so superior to the other’s horse, and Slone was so keen at choosing ground and short cuts, that he would have been right upon him but for a split in the rock which suddenly yawned across his path.  It was impassable.  After a quick glance Slone abandoned the direct pursuit, and, turning along this gulch, he gained a point where the horse-thief would pass under the base of the rim-wall, and here Slone would have him within easy rifle shot.