Eager as she was to be in the cañon she did not miss the pale pageant of light above rimrock, or fail to watch the golden halo come along the crest of Rainbow Cliff.
But she soon crossed the river and entered the mouth of the great cut, leaving behind the miracle of burgeoning day, for here the shadows were still thick, like grey ghosts. She pushed on up for an hour or so, listening to the voices which were still talking, while the shadows thinned between the dusky walls.
At the point where she had left the pony the day before she dismounted and dropped his rein.
“You wait here, old nuisance,” she said darkly, rubbing his restless ears, “for I may have sudden need of you. If you see me come flying out with a streak of tawny fur behind me, don’t you dare break when I jump. So long.”
She took the bread and meat from the saddle and started on foot. It was not so far to the swirling pool and the cave behind the rock, and long before the sunlight had crept half way down the ragged stone wall at the western side of the cañon she had reached them. She went carefully, picking her way, eyes scanning each turn and boulder. At the pool’s edge she stood a long time, watching, listening, but there was nothing to be seen or heard.
She went to the mouth of the cave and peering in cautiously, called softly. She waited, but there was no answering growl, no whirlwind rush as she had half expected. The shallow cave was empty, save for some ashes of a dead fire and blankets. She circled the rock and began hunting for tracks in the white sand of the cañon bed—and presently she found them—small tracks of childish feet, set close beside the padded narrow prints of a dog—and they were going up the cañon, deeper into its fastnesses. She trailed them easily for a distance, then lost them in the foaming shallows of a riffle, and search as she would she could not find where they came out. There was a flat lip of rock on the other side, to be sure, but beyond that was sand again, and it lay clear, unruffled. Above the riffle was a long deep pool, swift and flowing, and she stood for a time contemplating it.
It hardly seemed possible that the two outcasts could have swum it, and yet—where were their tracks if they had not?
She circled the pool and went on, trailing carefully, but the bed beyond was composed of shale, blue and sharp—hard going for a child’s bare feet, she thought compassionately—and gave no sign of a crossing. For another hour she went on, scanning the walls, the fallen stones, the stream itself and every nook or corner where anything might hide. She was far in Blue Stone Cañon by this time and wondered at the endurance which could have brought a child so far. Or had some one come and taken it away? That was possible, of course, and yet—a grown up person would have left marks in the soft sand assuredly. She would—but at this point in her train of thought, she came around a sharp jut in the wall—and face to face with her quarry, or at least with part of it.
Startled, the dog she had seen the day before was crouched in the narrow way that led around the jut, his body half turned, one foot raised, tail lowered, and the face he turned back across his shoulder was the most vicious thing Nance had ever seen. He was crouched to spring, and the fury of his snarls, audible above the sound of the stream, made that odd clutch close her throat which always accompanies sudden horror.
Nance Allison was a brave woman, but she was scared then.