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Updated: May 6, 2025
"An' how fur did you ever run him without a break? Why, when we ketched thet sorrel last year I rode Nagger myself thirty miles, most at a hard gallop. An' he never turned a hair!" "I've beat thet," replied Lin. "He could run hard fifty miles mebbe more. Honestly, I never seen him tired yet. If only he was fast!" "Wal, Nagger ain't so slow, come to think of thet," replied Bill, with a grunt.
He climbed out of one, presently, from which there extended a narrow ledge with a slant too perilous for any horse. He stepped out upon that with far less confidence than Nagger. To the right was a bulge of low wall, and a few feet to the left a dark precipice. The trail here was faintly outlined, and it was six inches wide and slanting as well. It seemed endless to Slone, that ledge.
Studying the black, rough wall of rock above him, he saw marks where the river had been sixty feet higher than where he stood on the sand. It was low, then. How lucky for him that he had gotten there before flood season! He believed Wildfire had crossed easily, and he knew Nagger could make it.
Making a bundle of these, he put them under his arm, the dull, glowing ends backward, and then mounted his horse. It was just about dark when he faced down into the valley. When he reached level ground he kept to the edge of the left slope and put Nagger to a good trot. The grass and brush were scant here, and the color of the sand was light, so he had no difficulty in traveling.
Whenever Slone came to corrugated stretches in the trail he felt grateful. But these were few. The rock was like smooth red iron. Slone had never seen such hard rock. It took him long to realize that it was marble. His heart seemed a tense, painful knot in his breast, as if it could not beat, holding back in the strained suspense. But Nagger never jerked on the bridle. He never faltered.
The impact threw Wildfire off his balance, just as Slone had calculated, and as the stallion plunged down on four feet Slone spurred Nagger close against him. Wildfire was a little in the lead. He could only half rear now, for the heaving, moving Nagger, always against him, jostled him down, and Slone's iron arm hauled on the short ropes.
He had not had a drink for three days that Slone knew of. And Nagger had not drunk for forty hours. Slone had a canvas water-bag hanging over the pommel, but it was a habit of his to deny himself, as far as possible, till his horse could drink also. Like an Indian, Slone ate and drank but little. It took four hours of steady trotting to reach the middle and bottom of that wide, flat valley.
Below was an offset that fortunately prevented further sliding. Slone started to walk down this place, but when Nagger began to slide Slone had to let go the bridle and jump. Both he and the horse landed safely. Luck was with them. And they went on, down and down, to reach the base of the great wall, scraped and exhausted, wet with sweat, but unhurt.
"At night then I could get round him," said Slone, thinking hard and narrowing his gaze to scan the circle of wall and slope. "Why not? ... No wind at night. That grass would burn slow till mornin' till the wind came up an' it's been west for days." Suddenly Slone began to pound the patient Nagger and to cry out to him in wild exultance.
But evidently it was not deep, and finally he crossed. From the other side he looked up again at Nagger and Slone, and, going on, he soon was out of sight in the cottonwoods. "How to get down!" muttered Slone. There was a break in the cliff wall, a bare stone slant where horses had gone down and come up. That was enough for Slone to know.
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