almost inaudible sigh of breeze, the opening and shutting of
the great white stars in the blue dome, the silence, the sense of the
invisible void beneath him--all were thought-provoking parts of that
past of which nothing could ever be forgotten. And it was a silence
which brought much to the ear that could hear. It was a silence
penetrated by faint and distant sounds, by mourning wolf, or moan of
wind in a splintered crag. Weird and low, an inarticulate voice, it
wailed up from the desert, winding along the hollow trail, freeing
itself in the wide air, and dying away. He had often heard the scream of
lion and cry of wildcat, but this was the strange sound of which August
Naab had told him, the mysterious call of canyon and desert night.

Daylight showed Echo Cliffs to be of vastly greater range than the
sister plateau across the river. The roll of cedar level, the heave of
craggy ridge, the dip of white-sage valley gave this side a diversity
widely differing from the two steps of the Vermillion tableland. August
Naab followed a trail leading back toward the river. For the most
part thick cedars hid the surroundings from Hare's view; occasionally,
however, he had a backward glimpse from a high point, or a wide prospect
below, where the trail overlooked an oval hemmed-in valley.

About midday August Naab brushed through a thicket, and came abruptly on
a declivity. He turned to his companion with a wave of his hand.

"The Navajo camp," he said. "Eschtah has lived there for many years.
It's the only permanent Navajo camp I know. These Indians are nomads.
Most of them live wherever the sheep lead them. This plateau ranges for
a hundred miles, farther than any white man knows, and everywhere, in
the valleys and green nooks, will be found Navajo hogans. That's why we
may never find Mescal."

Hare's gaze travelled down over the tips of cedar and crag to a pleasant
vale, dotted with round mound-like white-streaked hogans, from which
lazy floating columns of blue smoke curled upward. Mustangs and burros
and sheep browsed on the white patches of grass. Bright-red blankets
blazed on the cedar branches. There was slow colorful movement
of Indians, passing in and out of their homes. The scene brought
irresistibly to Hare the thought of summer, of long warm afternoons, of
leisure that took no stock of time.

On the way down the trail they encountered a flock of sheep driven by a
little Navajo boy on a brown burro. It was difficul