ght
fell, rolling away the sultry atmosphere. Then the black desert night
mantled the plain.

For a while this blackness soothed the pain of Hare's sun-blinded eyes.
It was a relief to have the unattainable horizon line blotted out. But
by-and-by the opaque gloom brought home to him, as the day had never
done, the reality of his solitude. He was alone in this immense place of
barrenness, and his dumb companions were the world to him. Wolf
pattered onward, a silent guide; and Silvermane followed, never lagging,
sure-footed in the dark, faithful to his master. All the love Hare had
borne the horse was as nothing to that which came to him on this desert
night. In and out, round and round, ever winding, ever zigzagging,
Silvermane hung close to Wolf, and the sandy lanes between the bowlders
gave forth no sound. Dog and horse, free to choose their trail, trotted
onward miles and miles into the night.

A pale light in the east turned to a glow, then to gold, and the round
disc of the moon silhouetted the black bowlders on the horizon. It
cleared the dotted line and rose, an oval orange-hued strange moon, not
mellow nor silvery nor gloriously brilliant as Hare had known it in the
past, but a vast dead-gold melancholy orb, rising sadly over the desert.
To Hare it was the crowning reminder of lifelessness; it fitted this
world of dull gleaming stones.

Silvermane went lame and slackened his trot, causing Hare to rein in and
dismount. He lifted the right forefoot, the one the horse had favored,
and found a stone imbedded tightly in the cloven hoof. He pried it out
with his knife and mounted again. Wolf shone faintly far ahead, and
presently he uttered a mournful cry which sent a chill to the rider's
heart. The silence had been oppressive before; now it was terrible. It
was not a silence of life. It had been broken suddenly by Wolf's howl,
and had closed sharply after it, without echo; it was a silence of
death.

Hare took care not to fall behind Wolf again, he had no wish to hear
that cry repeated. The dog moved onward with silent feet; the horse
wound after him with hoofs padded in the sand; the moon lifted and the
desert gleamed; the bowlders grew larger and the lanes wider. So the
night wore on, and Hare's eyelids grew heavy, and his whole weary body
cried out for rest and forgetfulness. He nodded until he swayed in the
saddle; then righted himself, only to doze again. The east gave birth to
the morning star. The whitenin