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She lay a long time basking in the sun that shone straight down, for it was noon, revelling in the relaxation of her young body, long worked to the limit and frankly tired.

She took her bread and bacon from a pocket and ate with the relish which only healthy youth can muster, clearing up the last crumb, drank from the stream, her face to the surface, and finally rose with a long breath of satisfaction.

“You can stay here, you old fraid-cat,” she said to the pony, dropping his rein over his head, “it’s hard on your feet, anyway. Me—I’m going on up a ways.”

Buckskin looked anxiously after her, but stayed where he was bid, as a well-trained horse should do, and the girl went on up the cañon, her fair head bare, her hands on her hips.

She drank in the sombre beauty of the dull blue walls, hung to their towering rims with coruscation and prominence carved fantastically by the erosion of uncounted years—listened, lips apart the better to hear, to the deep blended monotone of the talking voices.