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Updated: June 11, 2025
"This this outlaw you say you ran him down?" asked Naab, rising haggard and shaken out of his grief. "Yes. He didn't recognize me or know what was coming till Silvermane was on him. But he was quick, and fell sidewise. Silvermane's knee sent him sprawling." "What will it all lead to?" asked August Naab, and in his extremity he appealed to his eldest son.
He rose at dawn, never failing to see the red sun tip the eastern crags; he glowed with the touch of cold spring-water and the morning air; he trailed Silvermane under the cedars and thrilled when the stallion, answering his call, thumped the ground with hobbled feet and came his way, learning day by day to be glad at sight of his master.
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.
On the top of the next little ridge Hare heard Silvermane snort as he did when led to drink. There was a scent of water on the wind. Hare caught it, a damp, muggy smell. The sheep had noticed it long before, and now under its nearer, stronger influence began to bleat wildly, to run faster, to crowd without aim. "There's work ahead. Keep them packed and going. Turn the wheelers," ordered August.
Silvermane clattered down the easy trail at a gait which urged Hare now and then from walk to run. Soon the gully opened out upon a plateau through the centre of which, in a black gulf, wound the red Colorado, sullen-voiced, booming, never silent nor restful.
It was not many moments' work for him to push part of the fire under the fence, and part of it against the pile of logs. The pitch-pines went off like rockets, driving the thirsty cattle back. "I'm going to trail those horse-tracks," said Hare. He tore down a portion of the fence enclosing the flume, and gave Silvermane a drink, then put him to a fast trot on the white trail.
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.
"Mescal, that's a well-behaved mustang of yours," said August; "not only did she break loose, but she whistled an alarm to Silvermane and his band. Well, roll in now, everybody, and sleep." At breakfast the following day the Naabs fell into a discussion upon the possibility of there being other means of exit from the plateau than the two trails already closed.
Below Hare was a smaller rapid where the broken water turned toward the nearer side of the river, but with an accompaniment of twisting swirls and vicious waves. "I guess we'd better risk it," said Hare, grimly recalling the hot rock, the sand, and lava of the desert. "It's safe, if Silvermane is a good swimmer," replied Mescal.
Hare sent Silvermane at the deflecting sheep and frightened them into line. Wolf no longer had power to chase the stragglers; they had to be turned by a horse. All along the flank noses pointed outward; here and there sheep wilder than the others leaped forward to lead a widening wave of bobbing woolly backs.
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