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And like a scouting Indian Venters crawled through the sage of the oval valley, crossed trail after trail on the north side, and at last entered the canyon out of which headed the cattle trail, and into which he had watched the rustlers disappear

If he had used caution before, now he strained every nerve to force hi stealth and to sensitiveness of ear He crawled along so hidden that he could not use his eyes except to aid hih the brakes and ruins of cliff-wall Yet frorowing higher and wilder,and broken HeThe sage and thickets of oak and brakes of alder gave place to pinyon pine growing out of rocky soil Suddenly a low, dull ht it was thunder, then the slipping of a weathered slope of rock But it was incessant, and as he progressed it filled out deeper and fro water," he said "There's volume to that I wonder if it's the strea else Likewise, however, no rustlers could hear hi but a bird could see hi in the pinyons warned hiained it, and dropped loith a burst of astonishment

Before hirass or sage or tree, and with curved, shelving walls A broad rippling stream flowed toward him, and at the back of the canyon waterfall burst froreen steps, spread into a long white sheet

If Venters had not been indubitably certain that he had entered the right canyon his astonishreat

There had been no breaks in the walls, no side canyons entering this one where the rustlers' tracks and the cattle trail had guided hi But here the canyon ended, and presumably the trails also

"That cattle trail headed out of here," Venters kept saying to himself "It headed out Nohat I want to know is how on earth did cattle ever get in here?"

If he could be sure of anything it was of the careful scrutiny he had given that cattle track, every hoof east at an immense round boxed corner of canyon dohich tumbled a thin, white veil of water, scarcely twenty yards wide So For the first ti his rider's skill in finding tracks, and his memory of what he had actually seen In his anxiety to keep under cover he must have lost himself in this offshoot of Deception Pass, and thereby in some unaccountableelse for him to think Rustlers could not fly, nor cattle ju what the sage-riders had long said of this labyrinthine system of deceitful canyons and valleys--trails led down into Deception Pass, but no rider had ever followed them