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"Maybe he's that too."
"Likely enough. Hurry along and keep the gray team going lively.
They've had a week's rest."
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Hare watched the glimmering lights of the village vanish one by one, like
Jack-o'-lanterns. The horses kept a steady, even trot on into the huge
windy hall of the desert night. Fleecy clouds veiled the stars, yet
transmitted a wan glow. A chill crept over Hare. As he crawled under the
blankets Naab had spread for him his hand came into contact with a polished
metal surface cold as ice. It was his rifle. Naab had placed it under the
blankets. Fingering the rifle Hare found the spring opening on the right side
of the breech, and, pressing it down, he felt the round head of a cartridge.
Naab had loaded the weapon, he had placed it where
Hare's hand must find it, yet he had not spoken of it. Hare did not stop to
reason with his first impulse. Without a word, with silent insistence,
disregarding his shattered health, August Naab had given him a man's part to
play. The full meaning lifted Hare out of his self-abasement; once more he
felt himself a man.
Hare soon yielded to the warmth of the blankets; a drowsiness that he
endeavored in vain to throw off smothered his thoughts; sleep glued his
eyelids tight. They opened again some hours later. For a moment he could not
realize where he was; then the whip of the cold wind across his face, the
woolly feel and smell of the blankets, and finally the steady trot of horses
and the clink of a chain swinging somewhere under him, recalled the actually
of the night ride. He wondered how many miles had been covered, how the
drivers knew the direction and kept the horses in the trail, and whether the
outlaws were in pursuit. When Naab stopped the team and, climbing down,
walked back some rods to listen, Hare felt sure that Dene was coming. He
listened, too, but the movements of the horses and the rattle of their harness
were all the sounds he could hear.
Naab returned to his seat; the team started, now no longer in a trot;
they were climbing. After that Hare fell into a slumber in which he could
hear the slow grating whirr of wheels, and when it ceased he awoke to raise
himself and turn his ear to the back trail. By-and-by he discovered that the
black night had changed to gray; dawn was not far distant; he dozed and
awakened to clear light. A rose-red horizon lay far below and to the
eastward; the intervening descent was like a rolling sea with league-long
swells.
"Glad you slept some," was Naab's greeting. "No sign of Dene yet. If we can
get over the divide we're safe. That's Coconina there, Fire Mountain in
Navajo meaning. It's a plateau low and narrow at this end, but it runs far to
the east and rises nine thousand feet. It forms a hundred miles of the north
rim of the Grand Canyon. We're across the Arizona line now."
Hare followed the sweep of the ridge that rose to the eastward, but to
his inexperienced eyes its appearance carried no sense of its noble
proportions.
"Don't form any ideas of distance and size yet a while," said Naab, reading
Hare's expression. "They'd only have to be made over as soon as you learn
what light and air are in this country. It looks only half a mile to the top
of the divide; well, if we make it by midday we're lucky.
There, see a black spot over this way, far under the red wall? Look sharp.
Good I That's Holderness's ranch. It's thirty miles from here.
Nine Mile Valley heads in there. Once it belonged to Martin Cole.
Holderness stole it. And he's begun to range over the divide."
The sun rose and warmed the chill air. Hare began to notice the increased
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height and abundance of the sagebrush, which was darker in color. The first
cedar-tree, stunted in growth, dead at the top, was the half-way mark up the
ascent, so Naab said; it was also the forerunner of other cedars which
increased in number toward the summit. At length
Hare, tired of looking upward at the creeping white wagons, closed his eyes.
The wheels crunched on the stones; the horses heaved and labored;
Naab's "Getup" was the only spoken sound; the sun beamed down warm, th en hot;
and the hours passed. Some unusual noise roused Hare out of his lethargy.
The wagon was at a standstill. Naab stood on the seat with outstretched arm.
George and Dave were close by their mustangs, and Snap
Naab, mounted on a cream-colored pinto, reined him under August's arm, and
faced the valley below.
"Maybe you'll make them out," said August. "I can't, and I've watched those
dust-clouds for hours. George can't decide, either."
Hare, looking at Snap, was attracted by the eyes from which his father and
brothers expected so much. If ever a human being had the eyes of a hawk Snap
Naab had them. The little brown flecks danced in clear pale yellow.
Evidently Snap had not located the perplexing dust-clouds, for his glance
drifted. Suddenly the remarkable vibration of his pupils ceased, and his
glance grew fixed, steely, certain.
"That's a bunch of wild mustangs," he said.
Hare gazed till his eyes hurt, but could see neither clouds of dust nor moving
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