The little avalanche
stopped of its own accord, and then Slone dragged Nagger on down and down,
presently to come to the end of the steep descent. Slone looked up to see that
he had made short work of a thousand-foot slope. Here cedars and pinyons grew
thickly enough to make a forest. The snow thinned out to patches, and then
failed. But the going remained bad for a while as the horses sank deep in a
soft red earth. This eventually grew more solid and finally dry. Slone worked
out of the cedars to what appeared a grassy plateau inclosed by the great
green-and-white slope with its yellow wall over hanging, and distant mesas and
cliffs. Here his view was restricted. He was down on the first bench of the
great canyon. And there was the deer trail, a well-worn path keeping to the
edge of the slope. Slone came to a deep cut in the earth, and the trail headed
it, where it began at the last descent of the slope. It was the source of a
canyon. He could look down to see the bare, worn rock, and a hundred yards
from where he stood the earth was washed from its rims and it began to show
depth and something of that ragged outline which told of violence of flood.
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