Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/64

48 to the right, crossed the floor of the cañon, reined in again at the foot of the slope where were fewer big trees, wider spaces between where mountain brush and boulders allowed the vision wider range. Again the light of satisfaction came into his eyes. Yonder, a short distance ahead and higher up, was a landmark to be remembered, two giant cedars standing straight and close together, a long splinter of granite wedged in between them and gripped securely for many long years to come, lifted twenty feet above the ground.

"Hello, old boys," laughed Steele. "I remember you, all right. No, I'm not going to stop to answer your riddle today, but I'm just as much obliged to you." For the Goblet trail ran close to their trunks and from this point on there need be no hesitation. Steele swung down from the saddle. Leading his horse over the uneven ground, climbing in as straight a line as slope and brush would permit, he came in ten minutes to the cedars and their imprisoned rock. A moment he laid a big hand against a massive bole, looking up into the gnarled branches quite as one might turn glad eyes upon the weathered visage of an old friend. Then again he mounted, riding toward the south, keeping well up on the mountainside.

Half an hour later he passed over the ridge and dropped down into a country which had grown abruptly wilder, more rugged, infinitely eloquent of solitude. Beyond and below stretched away the big timber which man had left in its own dark browed dignity because its stronghold stood behind bulwarks of