from his strange swinging to the left off the trail.

The pack-train traveled steadily and soon crossed the upland plain to
descend into the valley again. Shefford saw the jagged red peaks with
an emotion he could not name. The canyon between them were purple in
the shadows, the great walls and slopes brightened to red, and the
tips were gold in the sun. Shefford forgot all about his mustang and
the trail.

Suddenly with a pound of hoofs Nack-yal seemed to rise. He leaped
sidewise out of the trail, came down stiff-legged. Then Shefford shot
out of the saddle. He landed so hard that he was stunned for an
instant. Sitting up, he saw the mustang bent down, eyes and ears
showing fight, and his forefeet spread. He appeared to be looking at
something in the trail. Shefford got up and soon saw what had been
the trouble. A long, crooked stick, rather thick and black and yellow,
lay in the trail, and any mustang looking for an excuse to jump might
have mistaken it for a rattlesnake. Nack-yal appeared disposed to be
satisfied, and gave Shefford no trouble in mounting. The incident
increased Shefford's dubiousness. These Arizona mustangs were unknown
quantities.

Thereafter Shefford had an eye for the trail rather than the scenery,
and this continued till the pack-train entered the mouth of the Sagi.
Then those wonderful lofty cliffs, with their peaks and towers and
spires, loomed so close and so beautiful that he did not care if Nack-
yal did throw him. Along here, however, the mustang behaved well, and
presently Shefford decided that if it had been otherwise he would have
walked. The trail suddenly stood on end and led down into the deep
wash, where some days before he had seen the stream of reddish water.