United
The caņon showed no sign of widening until they had proceeded a quarter of a mile from the entrance, then it broadened suddenly for a distance of a hundred yards.

"There has been a big slip here both sides," the miner said, looking round. "It must have taken place a great many years ago, for the winter floods have swept away all signs of it, and there are grass and trees on the slopes. The horses can find enough to keep them alive here for a day or two, and that is all we shall want, I hope."

"It would be a nasty place to get out of, Jerry, for the cliffs are perpendicular from half-way up."

"It ain't likely as there is any place we could get out without following it to the upper end, which may be some fifty miles away. I don't know the country it runs through, but the red-skins are pretty certain to know all about it. If they were to track us here they would never try to fight their way in, but would just set a guard at the mouth and at the upper end and starve us out. It is a good place to hide in, but a dog-goned bad one to be caught in. However, I hope it ain't coming to that. It is we who are going to attack them, and not them us, and that makes all the difference. The red-skins can't have a notion that there are any other white men in this neighbourhood, and when we open fire on them it will raise such a scare for a bit that it will give us a chance of joining the others if we choose. That of course must depend on their position."