For beyond a mile of the bare, hummocky rock began
the valley of sage, and the mouths of canyons, one of which
surely was another gateway into the pass.
He got off his horse, and, giving the bridle to Ring to hold, he
commenced a search for the cleft where the stream ran. He was not
successful and concluded the water dropped into an underground
passage. Then he returned to where he had left Wrangle, and led
him down off the stone to the sage. It was a short ride to the
opening canyons. There was no reason for a choice of which one to
enter. The one he rode into was a clear, sharp shaft in yellow
stone a thousand feet deep, with wonderful wind-worn caves low
down and high above buttressed and turreted ramparts. Farther on
Venters came into a region where deep indentations marked the
line of canyon walls. These were huge, cove-like blind pockets
extending back to a sharp corner with a dense growth of
underbrush and trees.
Venters penetrated into one of these offshoots, and, as he had
hoped, he found abundant grass. He had to bend the oak saplings
to get his horse through. Deciding to make this a hiding-place if
he could find water, he worked back to the limit of the shelving
walls. In a little cluster of silver spruces he found a spring.
This inclosed nook seemed an ideal place to leave his horse and
to camp at night, and from which to make stealthy trips on foot.
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