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Venters rode into a trail that he always took to get down into the canyon He dismounted and found no tracks but his ownahead and waited In a little while Ring returned Whereupon Venters led his horse on to the break in the ground

The opening into Deception Pass was one of the remarkable natural phenoe, uplands insulated by gigantic red walls, and deep canyons of mysterious source and outlet Here the valley floor was level, and here opened a narrow chased vent in yelloalls of stone The trail down the five hundred feet of sheer depth always tested Venters's nerve It was bad going for even a burro But Wrangle, as Venters led hiust rather than fear, and, like a hobbled horse on the jump, lifted his ponderous iron-shod fore hoofs and crashed down over the first rough step Venters war him a loose bridle, he stepped down foot by foot

Oftentile buried Venters to his knees; again he was hard put to it to dodge a rolling boulder, there were tile for dust, and once he and the horse rode a sliding shelf of yelloeathered cliff It was a trail on which there could be no stops, and, therefore, if perilous, it was at least one that did not take long in the descent

Venters breathed lighter when that was over, and felt a sudden assurance in the success of his enterprise For at first it had been a reckless deter at any cost, and now it resolved itself into an adventure worthy of all his reason and cunning, and keenness of eye and ear

Pinyon pines clustered in little cluathered under the walls Venters rode into the trail and up the canyon Gradually the trees and caves and objects lon turned black, and this blackness ht enfolded the pass, while day still lingered above The sky darkened; and stars began to show, at first pale and then bright Sharp notches of the ri like teeth into the blue, were land site lay He had to feel his way through a thicket of slender oaks to a spring where he watered Wrangle and drank hi no fear that the horse would leave the thick, cool grass adjacent to the spring Next he satisfied his own hunger, fed Ring and Whitie and, with them curled beside him, composed himself to await sleep