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The Heritage of the Desert-Part22_Zane Gray(1872-1939)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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the ground about their waterholes was closely examined. Mile after mile

the plateau was covered by these Indians, who beat the brush and



penetrated the fastnesses with a huntinginstinct that left scarcely a

rabbit-burrow unrevealed. The days sped by; the circle of the sun arched



higher; the patches of snow in high places disappeared; and the search

proceeded westward. They camped where the night overtook them, sometimes



near water and grass, sometimes in bare dry places. To the westward the

plateau widened. Rugged ridges rose here and there, and seared crags



split the sky like sharp sawteeth. And after many miles of wild

up-ranging they reached a divide which marked the line of Eschtah's



domain.

Naab's dogged persistence and the Navajos' faithfulness carried them into



the country of the Moki Indians, a tribe classed as slaves by the proud

race of Eschtah. Here they searched the villages and ancient tombs and



ruins, but of Mescal there was never a trace.

Hare rode as diligently and searched as indefatigably as August, but he



never had any real hope of finding the girl. To hunt for her, however,

despite its hopelessness, was a melancholysatisfaction, for never was



she out of his mind.

Nor was the month's hard riding with the Navajos without profit. He made



friends with the Indians, and learned to speak many of their words. Then

a whole host of desert tricks became part of his accumulating knowledge.



In climbing the crags, in looking for water and grass, in loosing

Silvermane at night and searching for him at dawn, in marking tracks on



hard ground, in all the sight and feeling and smell of desert things he

learned much from the Navajos. The whole outward life of the Indian was



concerned with the material aspect of Nature--dust, rock, air, wind,

smoke, the cedars, the beasts of the desert. These things made up the



Indians' day. The Navajos were worshippers of the physical; the sun was

their supreme god. In the mornings when the gray of dawn flushed to rosy



red they began their chant to the sun. At sunset the Navajos were

watchful and silent with faces westward. The Moki Indians also, Hare



observed, had their morning service to the great giver of light. In the

gloom of early dawn, before the pink appeared in the east, and all was



whitening gray, the Mokis emerged from their little mud and stone huts

and sat upon the roofs with blanketed and drooping heads.



One day August Naab showed in few words how significant a factor the sun

was in the lives of desert men.



"We've got to turn back," he said to Hare. "The sun's getting hot and

the snow will melt in the mountains. If the Colorado rises too high we



can't cross."

They were two days in riding back to the encampment. Eschtah received



them in dignified silence, expressive of his regret. When their time of

departure arrived he accompanied them to the head of the nearest trail,



which started down from Saweep Peak, the highest point of Echo Cliffs.

It was the Navajos' outlook over the Painted Desert.



"Mescal is there," said August Naab." She's there with the slave Eschtah

gave her. He leads Mescal. Who can follow him there?"



The old chieftain reined in his horse, beside the time-hollowed trail,

and the same hand that waved his white friend downward swept up in slow



stately gesture toward the illimitable expanse. It was a warrior's

salute to an unconquered world. Hare saw in his falcon eyes the still



gleam, the brooding fire, the mystical passion that haunted the eyes of

Mescal.



"The slave without a tongue is a wolf. He scents the trails and the

waters. Eschtah's eyes have grown old watching here, but he has seen no



Indian who could follow Mescal's slave. Eschtah will lie there, but no

Indian will know the path to the place of his sleep. Mescal's trail is



lost in the sand. No man may find it. Eschtah's words are wisdom.

Look!"



To search for any living creatures in that borderless domain of colored

dune, of shifting cloud of sand, of purple curtain shrouding mesa and



dome, appeared the vainest of all human endeavors. It seemed a

veritable rainbow realm of the sun. At first only the beauty stirred



Hare--he saw the copper belt close under the cliffs, the white beds of

alkali and washes of silt farther out, the wind-ploughed canyons and



dust-encumbered ridges ranging west and east, the scalloped slopes of the

flat tableland rising low, the tips of volcanic peaks leading the eye



beyond to veils and vapors hovering over blue clefts and dim line of

level lanes, and so on, and on, out to the vast unknown. Then Hare



grasped a little of its meaning. It was a sun-painted, sun-governed




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