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. These things made up the
Indians' day. The Navajos were worshippers of the physical; the sun was
their supreme god. In the mornings when the gray of dawn flushed to
rosy red they began their chant to the sun. At sunset the Navajos were
watchful and silent with faces westward. The Moki Indians also, Hare
observed, had their morning service to the great giver of light. In the
gloom of early dawn, before the pink appeared in the east, and all was
whitening gray, the Mokis emerged from their little mud and stone huts
and sat upon the roofs with blanketed and drooping heads.

One day August Naab showed in few words how significant a factor the sun
was in the lives of desert men.

"We've got to turn back," he said to Hare. "The sun's getting hot and
the snow will melt in the mountains. If the Colorado rises too high we
can't cross."

They were two days in riding back to the encampment. Eschtah received
them in dignified silence, expressive of his regret. When their time of
departure arrived he accompanied them to the head of the nearest trail,
which started down from Saweep Peak, the highest point of Echo Cliffs.
It was the Navajos' outlook over the Painted Desert.

"Mescal is there," said August Naab. "She's there with the slave Eschtah
gave her. He leads Mescal. Who can follow him there?"

The old chieftain reined in his horse, beside the time-hollowed trail,
and the same hand that waved his white friend downward swept up in
slow stately gesture toward the illimitable expanse. It was a warrior's
salute to an unconquered world. Hare saw in his falcon eyes the still
gleam, the brooding fire, the mystical passion that haunted the eyes of
Mescal.

"The slave without a tongue is a wolf. He scents the trails and the
waters. Eschtah's eyes have grown old watching here, but he has seen no
Indian who could follow Mescal's slave. Eschtah will lie there, but no
Indian will know the path to the place of his sleep. Mescal's trail is
lost in the sand. No man may find it. Eschtah's words are wisdom. Look!"

To search for any living creatures in that borderless domain