Coming up here was a killing job. But it'll be easy going
down."
Both burros passed down the difficult stairs cut by the
cliff-dwellers, and did it without a misstep. After that the
descent down the slope and over the mile of scrawled, ripped, and
ridged rock required only careful guidance, and Venters got the
burros to level ground in a condition that caused him to
congratulate himself.
"Oh, if we only had Wrangle!" exclaimed Venters. "But we're
lucky. That's the worst of our trail passed. We've only men to
fear now. If we get up in the sage we can hide and slip along
like coyotes."
They mounted and rode west through the valley and entered the
canyon. From time to time Venters walked, leading his burro. When
they got by all the canyons and gullies opening into the Pass
they went faster and with fewer halts. Venters did not confide in
Bess the alarming fact that he had seen horses and smoke less
than a mile up one of the intersecting canyons. He did not talk
at all. And long after he had passed this canyon and felt secure
once more in the certainty that they had been unobserved he never
relaxed his watchfulness. But he did not walk any more, and he
kept the burros at a steady trot. Night fell before they reached
the last water in the Pass and they made camp by starlight.
Venters did not want the burros to stray, so he tied them with
long halters in the grass near the spring.
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