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