There were six or eight horses in the corral several of which took Jim's eye. Still, they could not compare with Bay.

Spreading out his possessions, he packed them in one small and two large bundles. This he performed with care, having in mind a long journey over bad trails. By the time he had finished Happy Jack and Lincoln arrived, staggering under burdens. While they rested Hays came along, and the pack he carried attested to the fact that he was no shirker.

"Hank, you look like a thundercloud," observed Brad Lincoln, chuckling.

"Wal, I feel like one. What do you think, fellers? Thet fox-faced Sneed always did make me pay cash, but this time I had to produce beforehand."

"These Mormons are slick business men," said Happy Jack.

"Hank, it ain't only your credit thet's bad here in Green River," added Lincoln, satirically.

"Wal, I'll tell you what," growled Hays. "If we didn't have this Star Ranch deal on we'd take every damn thing Sneed has."

"Let's do it, anyhow."

"Nope. At least not now. Mebbe this fall . . . I'd like to have a shot at Sneed's sharp nose. . . . Rustle an' pack now, fellers.

We're behind."

Half an hour later the four men, driving five packed horses and two unpacked, rode off behind the town across the flat toward the west.

Coming to a road, Hays led on that for a mile or so, and then branched off on a seldom-used trail which appeared to parallel the wonderful, gray-cliffed mountain wall that zigzagged on to the purple-hazed distance.

They went down a long hill of bare clay earth dotted with rocks and scant brush, at the bottom of which ran a deep, wide, dry wash.

Green River with its cottonwoods dropped behind the hill, to be seen no more.

Gradually the pack-horses settled into single file on the trail and required little driving. The riders straggled along behind. Jim Wall brought up the rear. If he was ever contented it was when he was on horseback with open, unknown country ahead. This for him was familiar action. Once he caught himself looking back over his shoulder, and he laughed. It was an instinct, a habit.

When the opposite, endless, slow-rising slope had been surmounted, Wall saw all around country that wrenched a tribute from him.

Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana left much to be desired in comparison with Utah. Jim had not ridden over Arizona, so could not judge. But Utah was stunning.

To his right ran the crooked rim-rock, gray and yellow, with its speckled slides, its jagged peaks, its rough wildness increasing on and on. Ahead a vast rolling plain, bare in the foreground, stark and ghastly in patches, and in the distance rolling from monotonous gray to faint green. Above the horizon towered the black Henry Mountains, far away, dim and strange, with white peaks in the blue.

But it was the region to the left and south of the Henrys that fascinated Jim Wall.

Beyond the bulge of the plain, buttes stood up here and there, lofty and sentinel-like, isolated, hinting of rough country. More, toward Wall's left, the plain dropped off, allowing him to see boundlessly in that direction. A shiny, wandering line of river, bordered with green, disappeared in a chaotic wilderness of bare rock, carved and broken into every conceivable shape.

The thought came to Wall that a rider down in there would have little to fear from pursuers. He would be alone. He could sleep.

He could idle for hours, with never a need to hurry or think or watch.