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during daylight. He's a peon, a Navajo slave. He can't talk, as he was born
without a tongue, or it was cut out, but he has the best eyes of any
Indian I know. You see this point commands the farm, the crossing, the
Navajo Trail over the river, the Echo Cliffs opposite, where the Navajos
signal to me, and also the White Sage Trail."
The oasis shone under the triangular promontory; the river with its rising
roar wound in bold curve from the split in the cliffs. To the right
white-sloped Coconina breasted the horizon. Forward across the
Canyon line opened the many-hued desert.
"With this peon watching here I'm not likely to be surprised," said Naab.
"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.
Yet this one stood apart from the others, not differing in blanketed leanness,
or straggling black hair, or bronze skin, but in the
bird-of-prey cast of his features and the wildness of his glittering eyes.
Naab gave him a bag from one of the packs, spoke a few words in
Navajo, and then slapped the burros into the trail.
The climb thenceforth was more rapid because less steep, and the trail now led
among broken fragments of cliff. The color of the stones had changed from red
to yellow, and small cedars grew in protected places.
Hare's judgment of height had such frequent cause for correction that he gave
up trying to estimate the altitude. The ride had begun to tell on his
strength, and toward the end he thought he could not manage to stay longer
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upon Noddle. The air had grown thin and cold, and though the sun was yet an
hour high, his fingers were numb.
"Hang on, Jack," cheered August. "We're almost up."
At last Black Bolly disappeared, likewise the bobbing burros, one by one, then
Noddle, wagging his ears, reached a level. Then Hare saw a gray-green cedar
forest, with yellow crags rising in the background, and a rush of cold wind
smote his face. For a moment he choked; he could not get his breath. The air
was thin and rare, and he inhaled deeply trying to overcome the suffocation.
Presently he realized that the trouble was not with the rarity of the
atmosphere, but with the bitter-sweet penetrating odor it carried. He was
almost stifled. It was not like the smell of pine, though it made him think
of pine-trees.
"Ha! that's good!" said Naab, expanding his great chest. "That's air for you,
my lad. Can you taste it? Well, here's camp, your home for many a day, Jack.
There's Piute--how do? how're the sheep?"
A short, squat Indian, good-humored of face, shook his black head till the
silver rings danced in his ears, and replied: "Bad--damn coyotee!"
"Piute--shake with Jack. Him shoot coyote--got big gun," said Naab.
"How-do-Jack?" replied Piute, extending his hand, and then straightway began
examining the new rifle. "Damn--heap big gun!"
"Jack, you'll find this Indian one you can trust, for all he's a Piute
outcast," went on August. "I've had him with me ever since Mescal found him
on the Coconina Trail five years ago. What Piute doesn't know about this side
of Coconina isn't worth learning."
In a depression sheltered from the wind lay the camp. A fire burned in the
centre; a conical tent, like a tepee in shape, hung suspended from a cedar
branch and was staked at its four points; a leaning slab of rock furnished
shelter for camp supplies and for the Indian, and at one end a spring gushed
out. A gray-sheathed cedar-tree marked the entrance to this hollow glade, and
under it August began preparing Hare's bed.
"Here's the place you're to sleep, rain or shine or snow," he said. "Now
I've spent my life sleeping on the ground, and mother earth makes the best
bed. I'll dig out a little pit in this soft mat of needles; that's for your
hips. Then the tarpaulin so; a blanket so. Now the other blankets. Your
feet must be a little higher than your head; you really sleep down hill, which
breaks the wind. So you never catch cold. All you need do is to change your
position according to the direction of the wind. Pull up the blankets, and
then the long end of the tarpaulin. If it rains or snows cover your head, and
sleep, my lad, sleep to the song of the wind!"
From where Hare lay, resting a weary body, he could see down into the
depression which his position guarded. Naab built up the fire; Piute peeled
potatoes with deliberate care; Mescal, on her knees, her brown arms bare,
kneaded dough in a basin; Wolf crouched on the ground, and watched his
mistress; Black Bolly tossed her head, elevating the bag on her nose so as to
get all the grain.
Naab called him to supper, and when Hare set to with a will on the bacon and
eggs, and hot biscuits, he nodded approvingly. "That's what I want to see,"
he said approvingly. "You must eat. Piute will get deer, or you may shoot
them yourself; eat all the venison you can. Remember what
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Scarbreast said. Then rest. That's the secret. If you eat and rest you will
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