If he had used caution before, now he strained every nerve to
force himself to creeping stealth and to sensitiveness of ear. He
crawled along so hidden that he could not use his eyes except to
aid himself in the toilsome progress through the brakes and ruins
of cliff-wall. Yet from time to time, as he rested, he saw the
massive red walls growing higher and wilder, more looming and
broken. He made note of the fact that he was turning and
climbing. The sage and thickets of oak and brakes of alder gave
place to pinyon pine growing out of rocky soil. Suddenly a low,
dull murmur assailed his ears. At first he thought 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 from
a murmur changed into a soft roar.
"Falling water," he said. "There's volume to that. I wonder if
it's the stream I lost."
The roar bothered him, for he could hear nothing else. Likewise,
however, no rustlers could hear him. Emboldened by this and sure
that nothing but a bird could see him, he arose from his hands
and knees to hurry on. An opening in the pinyons warned him that
he was nearing the height of slope.
He gained it, and dropped low with a burst of astonishment.
Before him stretched a short canyon with rounded stone floor bare
of grass 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 from a wide rent in the cliff, and,
bounding down in two green steps, spread into a long white sheet.
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