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"Don't go," she implored, her hand on his arm. "Not at night remember Father Naab said not." "Listen! I won't stand that. I'll go. Here, get in the tree quick!" "No no " "Do as I say!" It was a command. The girl wavered. He dropped the rifle, and swung her up. "Climb!" "No don't go Jack!" With Piute at his heels he ran out into the darkness.
For several days Hare was remarkably well, for an invalid. He won golden praise from August at the rifle practice, and he began to take lessons in the quick drawing and rapid firing of a Colt revolver. Naab was wonderfully proficient in the use of both firearms; and his skill in drawing the smaller weapon, in which his movement was quicker than the eye, astonished Hare.
I was foreman, but there were things gain' on thet I didn't know of. I kicked on thet deal with Martin Cole. I quit. I steal no man's water. Is thet good with you?" Snood's query was as much a challenge as a question. He bit savagely at his pipe. Hare offered his hand. "Your word goes. Dave Naab said you might be Holderness's foreman, but you weren't a liar or a thief.
At its farthest end was a green enclosure, which Hare recognized as the cemetery mentioned by Snap. Hare counted thirty graves, a few with crude monuments of stone, the others marked by wooden head-pieces. "I've the reputation of doctoring the women, and letting the men die," said Naab, with a smile. "I hardly think it's fair. But the fact is no women are buried here.
"I'm going to take you home and Father Naab shall marry you to to me." Startled, Mescal fell back upon his shoulder and did not stir nor speak for a long time. "Did did you tell him?" "Yes." "What did he say? Was he angry? Tell me." "He was kind and good as he always is. He said if I found you, then the issue would be between Snap and me, as man to man.
His frame seemed wrenched as though by the passing of an evil spirit, and the reaction left his face transfigured. "Paul, it's your father, the Bishop," he said, brokenly. "Be a man. He must never know." Naab spread wide his arms to the crowd. "Men, listen," he said. "Of all of us Mormons I have lost most, suffered most. Then hear me. Bishop Caldwell must never know of his son's guilt.
"Jack," said August Naab, "our friends the Navajo chiefs, Scarbreast and Eschtah, are coming to visit us. Take no notice of them at first. They've great dignity, and if you entered their hogans they'd sit for some moments before appearing to see you. Scarbreast is a war-chief. Eschtah is the wise old chief of all the Navajos on the Painted Desert.
Beyond this earth-riven line lay something vast and illimitable, a far-reaching vision of white wastes, of purple plains, of low mesas lost in distance. It was the shimmering dust-veiled desert. "Here we come to the real thing," explained Naab.
The wind favors us. That whistle was just plain fight, judging from what Naab told me of wild stallions. He came to the hilltop, and whistled down defiance to any horse, wild or tame, that might be below. I'll slip round through the cedars, and block the trail leading up to the other range, and you and Piute close the gate of our trail at this end.
The old Bishop came tottering over the grass, leaning on his cane, shading his eyes with his hand. "August. See, the Bishop's coming. Paul's father! Do you hear?" Hare's appeal pierced Naab's frenzied brain. The Mormon Elder saw his old Bishop pause and stare at the dark shapes suspended from the cottonwoods and hold up his hands in horror. Naab loosed his hold.
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