Evidently he expected a long chase, one from which he would not return, and light as his outfit was it would grow too heavy.
Then he mounted and rode down the gradual slope, facing the valley and the black, bold, flat mountain to the southeast.

Some few hundred yards from camp he halted Nagger and bent over in the saddle to scrutinize the ground.
The clean-cut track of a horse showed in the bare, hard sand.

The hoof-marks were large, almost oval, perfect in shape, and manifestly they were beautiful to Lin Slone.

He gazed at them for a long time, and then he looked across the dotted red valley up the vast ridgy steps, toward the black plateau and beyond.

It was the look that an Indian gives to a strange country.