then the cowboy turned his horse into a deep fissure that slanted
upward at a most precarious angle seemingly straight into the heart of
the mountain. Just when it seemed that the trail must end in a blind
pocket, the Texan swung into a cross fissure so narrow that the
stirrups brushed either side. So dark was it between the towering rock
walls that Alice could scarcely make out the cowboy's horse, although
at no time was he more than ten or fifteen feet in advance. After
innumerable windings the fissure led once more to the face of the
mountain and Tex headed his horse out upon a ledge that had not been
discernible from below. Alice gasped, and for a moment it seemed as
though she could not go on. Spread out before her like a huge relief
map were the ridges and black coulees of the bad lands, and directly
below--hundreds of feet below--the gigantic rock fragments lay strewn
along the base of the cliff like the abandoned blocks of a child. She
closed her eyes and shuddered. A loose piece of rock on the narrow
trail, a stumble, and--she could feel herself whirling down, down,
down. It was the voice of the Texan--confident, firm, reassuring--that
brought her once more to her senses.

"It's all right. Just follow right along. Shut your eyes, or keep 'em
to the wall. We're half-way up. It ain't so steep from here on, an'
she widens toward the top. I'm dizzy-headed, too, in high places an' I
shut mine. Just give the horse a loose rein an' he'll keep the trail.
There ain't nowhere else for him to go."

With a deadly fear in her heart, the girl fastened her eyes upon the
cowboy's back and gave her horse his head. And as she rode she
wondered at this man who unhesitatingly risked his life upon the word
of a horse-thief.