that the day was done. Hare made his camp beside a stone which would

serve as a wind-break. He laid his saddle for a pillow and his blanket
for a bed. He gave Silvermane a nose-bag full of water and then one of

grain; he fed the dog, and afterward attended to his own needs. When his
task was done the desert brightness had faded to gray; the warm air had

blown away on a cool breeze, and night approached. He scooped out a
little hollow in the sand for his hips, took a last look at Silvermane

haltered to the rock, and calling Wolf to his side stretched himself to
rest. He was used to lying on the ground, under the open sky, out where

the wind blew and the sand seeped in, yet all these were different on
this night. He was in the Painted Desert; Wolf crept close to him;

Mescal lay somewhere under the blue-white stars.
He awakened and arose before any color of dawn hinted of the day. While

he fed his four-footed companions the sky warmed and lightened. A tinge
of rose gathered in the east. The air was cool and transparent. He

tried to cheer Wolf out of his sad-eyed forlornness, and failed.
Hare vaulted into the saddle. The day had its possibilities, and while

he had sobered down from his first unthinking exuberance, there was still
a ring in his voice as he called to the dog:

"On, Wolf, on, old boy!"
Out of the east burst the sun, and the gray curtain was lifted by shafts

of pink and white and gold, flashing westward long trails of color.
When they started the actions of the dog showed Hare that Wolf was not

tracking a back-trail, but travelling by instinct. There were draws
which necessitated a search for a crossing, and areas of broken rock

which had to be rounded, and steep flat mesas rising in the path, and
strips of deep sand and canyons impassable for long distances. But the

dog always found a way and always came back to a line with the black spur
that Hare had marked. It still stood in sharp relief, no nearer than

before, receding with every step, an illusive landmark, which Hare began
to distrust.

Then quite suddenly it vanished in the ragged blue mass of the Ghost
Mountains. Hare had seen them several times, though never so distinctly.

The purple tips, the bold rock-ribs, the shadowed canyons, so sharp and
clear in the morning light--how impossible to believe that these were

only the deceit of the desert mirage! Yet so they were; even for the
Navajos they were spirit-mountains.

The splintered desert-floor merged into an area of sand. Wolf slowed his
trot, and Silvermane's hoofs sunk deep. Dismounting Hare labored beside

him, and felt the heat steal through his boots and burn the soles of his
feet. Hare plodded onward, stopping once to tie another moccasin on

Wolf's worn paw, this time the left one; and often he pulled the stopper
from the water-bag and cooled his parching lips and throat. The waves of

the sand-dunes were as the waves of the ocean. He did not look backward,
dreading to see what little progress he had made. Ahead were miles on

miles of graceful heaps, swelling mounds, crested ridges, all different,
yet regular and rhythmical, drift on drift, dune on dune, in endless

waves. Wisps of sand were whipped from their summits in white ribbons
and wreaths, and pale clouds of sand shrouded little hollows. The

morning breeze, rising out of the west, approached in a rippling lines
like the crest of an inflowing tide.

Silvermane snorted, lifted his ears and looked westward toward a yellow
pall which swooped up from the desert.

"Sand-storm," said Hare, and calling Wolf he made for the nearest rock
that was large enough to shelter them. The whirling sand-cloud

mushroomed into an enormous desert covering, engulfing the dunes,
obscuring the light. The sunlight failed; the day turned to gloom. Then

an eddying fog of sand and dust enveloped Hare.,. His last glimpse be-
fore he covered his face with a silk handkerchief was of sheets of sand

streaming past his shelter. The storm came with a low, soft, hissing
roar, like the sound in a sea-shell magnified. Breathing through the

handkerchief Hare avoided inhaling the sand which beat against his face,
but the finer dust particles filtered through and stifled him. At first

he felt that he would suffocate, and he coughed and gasped; but
presently, when the thicker sand-clouds had passed, he managed to get air

enough to breathe. Then he waited patiently while the steady seeping
rustle swept by, and the band of his hat sagged heavier, and the load on

his shoulders had to be continuallyshaken off, and the weighty trap
round his feet crept upward. When the light, fine touch ceased he

removed the covering from his face to see himself standing nearly to his
knees in sand, and Silvermane's back and the saddle burdened with it.

The storm was moving eastward, a dull red now with the sun faintly
showing through it like a ball of fire.

"Well, Wolf, old boy, how many storms like that will we have to weather?"
asked Hare, in a cheery tone which he had to force. He knew these

sand-storms were but vagaries of the desert-wind. Before the hour closed
he had to seek the cover of a stone and wait for another to pass. Then

he was caught in the open, with not a shelter in sight. He was compelled
to turn his back to a third storm, the worst of all, and to bear as best

he could the heavy impact of the first blow, and the succeeding rush and
flow of sand. After that his head drooped and he wearily trudged beside

Silvermane, dreading the interminable distance he must cover before once
more gaining hard ground. But he discovered that it was useless to try

to judge distance on the desert. What had appeared miles at his last
look turned out to be only rods.

It was good to get into the saddle again and face clear air. Far away
the black spur again loomed up, now surrounded by groups of mesas with

sage-slopes tinged with green. That surely meant the end of this long
trail; the faint spots of green lent suggestion of a desert waterhole;

there Mescal must be, hidden in some shady canyon. Hare built his hopes
anew.

So he pressed on down a plain of bare rock dotted by huge bowlders; and
out upon a level floor of scant sage and greasewood where a few living

creatures, a desert-hawk sailing low, lizards darting into holes, and a
swiftly running ground-bird, emphasized the lack of life in the waste.

He entered a zone of clay-dunes of violet and heliotrope hues; and then a
belt of lava and cactus. Reddish points studded the desert, and here and

there were meagre patches of white grass. Far away myriads of cactus
plants showed like a troop of distorted horsemen. As he went on the

grass failed, and streams of jagged lava- flowed downward. Beds of
cinders told of the fury of a volcanic fire. Soon Hare had to dismount

to make moccasins for Wolf's hind feet; and to lead Silvermane carefully
over the cracked lava. For a while there were strips of ground bare of

lava and harboring only an occasional bunch of cactus, but soon every
foot free of the reddish iron bore a projecting mass of fierce spikes and

thorns. The huge barrel-shaped cacti, and thickets of slender dark-green
rods with bayonet points, and broad leaves with yellow spines, drove Hare

and his sore-footed fellow-travellers to the lava.
Hare thought there must be an end to it some time, yet it seemed as

though he were never to cross that black forbidding inferno. Blistered
by the heat, pierced by the thorns, lame from long toil on the lava, he

was sorely spent when once more he stepped out upon the bare desert. On
pitching camp he made the grievous discovery that the water-bag had

leaked or the water had evaporated, for there was only enough left for
one more day. He ministered to thirsty dog and horse in silence, his

mind revolving the grim fact of his situation.
His little fire of greasewood threw a wan circle into the surrounding

blackness. Not a sound hinted of life. He longed for even the bark of a
coyote. Silvermane stooped motionless with tired head. Wolf stretched

limply on the sand. Hare rolled into his blanket and stretched out with
slow aching relief.

He dreamed he was a boy roaming over the green hills of the old farm,
wading through dewy clover-fields, and fishing in the Connecticut River.

It was the long vacationtime, an endless freedom. Then he was at the
swimming-hole, and playmates tied his clothes in knots, and with shouts

of glee ran up the bank leaving him there to shiver.
When he awakened the blazing globe of the sun had arisen over the eastern

horizon, and the red of the desert swathed all the reach of valley.
Hare pondered whether he should use his water at once or dole it out.

That ball of fire in the sky, a glazed circle, like iron at white heat,
decided for him. The sun would be hot and would evaporate such water as