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Jack made a poor showing with the tale and slighted his share in it, but Mescal told it as it actually happened. And Naab's great hand resounded from Jack's shoulder. Then, catching sight of the pile of coyote skins under the stone shelf, he gave vent to his surprise and delight. Then he came back to the object of his trip upon the plateau. "So you've corralled Silvermane?
Hare walked down the avenue of cottonwoods and was about to turn the corner of the old forge when he stopped short. "Now mind you, I'll take a bead on this white-faced spy if you send him up there." It was Snap Naab's voice, and his speech concluded with the click of teeth characteristic of him in anger. "Stand there!" August Naab exclaimed in wrath. "Listen.
"That strip of sand protects me at night from approach, and I've never had anything to fear from across the river." Naab's peon came from a little cave in the wall; and grinned the greeting he could not speak. To Hare's uneducated eye all Indians resembled each other.
The wildness of it all, the necessity of peril and calm acceptance of it, stirred within Hare the call, the awakening, the spirit of the desert. August Naab's stentorian voice rolled out over the river. "Ho! Dave the yellow pinto pull him loose George, back this way there's a pack slipping down now, downstream, turn that straggler in Dave, in that tangle quick!
An hour went by without signs of distress; and with half the five-mile trip at his back August Naab's voice gathered cheer. The sun beat hotter. Another hour told a different story the sheep labored; they had to be forced by urge of whip, by knees of horses, by Wolf's threatening bark. They stopped altogether during the frequent hot sand-blasts, and could not be driven. So time dragged.
His Colt gleamed in the camp-fire light. Click! Click! Click! The hammer fell upon empty chambers. "H l!" he shrieked. Holderness laughed sarcastically. "That's where you're going!" he cried. "Here's to Naab's trick with a gun Bah!" And he shot his foreman through the heart. Snap plunged upon his face. His hands beat the ground like the shuffling wings of a wounded partridge.
While Hare feared for the lives of some of the Navajos, and pitied the laden ponies, he could not but revel in the scene, in its vivid action and varying color, in the cries and shrill whoops of the Indians, and the snorts of the frightened mustangs, in Naab's hoarse yells to his sons, and the ever-present menacing roar from around the bend.
Some time must have passed during his dreaming, for only three persons were in sight. Naab's broad back was bowed and his head nodded. Across the fire in its ruddy flicker sat Eschtah beside a slight, dark figure. At second glance Hare recognized Mescal. Surprise claimed him, not more for her presence there than for the white band binding her smooth black tresses.
The early morning hours were devoted to religious services. At midday dinner was served in the big room of August Naab's cabin. At one end was a stone fireplace where logs blazed and crackled. In all his days Hare had never seen such a bountiful board. Yet he was unable to appreciate it, to share in the general thanksgiving.
The deep-scheming Holderness, confident that his strong band meant sure protection, sat and smoked and smiled beside the camp-fire. He had not caught even a hint of Snap Naab's suggested warning. Yet somewhere out on the oasis trail rode a man who, once turned from the saving of life to the lust to kill, would be as immutable as death itself.
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