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eastward; the intervening descent was like a rolling
sea with league-long swells.
    "Glad you slept some," was Naab's greeting. "No sign of Dene yet. If we
can get over the divide we're safe. That's Coconina there, Fire Mountain
in Navajo meaning. It's a plateau low and narrow at this end, but it
runs far to the east and rises nine thousand feet. It forms a hundred
miles of the north rim of the Grand Canyon. We're across the Arizona
line now."
    Hare followed the sweep of the ridge that rose to the eastward, but to
his inexperienced eyes its appearance carried no sense of its noble
proportions.
    "Don't form any ideas of distance and size yet a while," said Naab,
reading Hare's expression. "They'd only have to be made over as soon as
you learn what light and air are in this country. It looks only half a
mile to the top of the divide; well, if we make it by midday we're lucky.
There, see a black spot over this way, far under the red wall? Look
sharp. Good! That's Holderness's ranch. It's thirty miles from here.
Nine Mile Valley heads in there. Once it belonged to Martin Cole.
Holderness stole it. And he's begun to range over the divide."
    The sun rose and warmed the chill air. Hare began to notice the
increased height and abundance of the sagebrush, which was darker in
color. The first cedar-tree, stunted in growth, dead at the top, was the
half-way mark up the ascent, so Naab said; it was also the forerunner of
other cedars which increased in number toward the summit. At length
Hare, tired of looking upward at the creeping white wagons, closed his
eyes. The wheels crunched on the stones; the horses heaved and labored;
Naab's "Getup" was the only spoken sound; the sun beamed down warm, then
hot; and the hours passed. Some unusual noise roused Hare out of his
lethargy. The wagon was at a standstill. Naab stood on the seat with
outstretched arm. George and Dave were close by their mustangs, and Snap
Naab, mounted on a cream-colored pinto, reined him under August's arm,
and faced the valley below.
    "Maybe you'll make them out," said August. "I can't, and I've watched
those dust-clouds for hours. George can't decide, either."
    Hare, looking at Snap, was attracted by the eyes from which his father
and brothers expected so much. If ever a human being had the eyes of a
hawk Snap Naab had them. The little brown flecks danced in clear pale
yellow. Evidently Snap had not located the perplexing dust-clouds, for
his glance drifted. Suddenly the remarkable vibration of his pupils
ceased, and his glance grew fixed, steely, certain.
    "That's a bunch of wild mustangs," he said.
    Hare gazed till his eyes hurt, but could see neither clouds of dust nor
moving objects. No more was said. The sons wheeled their mustangs and
rode to the fore; August Naab reseated himself and took up the reins; the
ascent proceeded.
    But it proceeded leisurely, with more frequent rests. At the end of an
hour the horses toiled over the last rise to the summit and entered a
level forest of cedars; in another hour they were descending gradually.
    "Here we are at the tanks," said Naab.
    Hare saw that they had come up with the other wagons. George Naab was
leading a team down a rocky declivity to a pool of yellow water. The
other boys were unharnessing and unsaddling.
    "About three," said Naab, looking at the sun. "We're in good time.
Jack, get out and stretch yourself. We camp here. There's the Coconina
Trail where the Navajos go in after deer."
    It was not a pretty spot, this little rock-strewn glade where the white
hard trail forked with the road. The yellow water with its green scum
made Hare sick. The horses drank with loud gulps. Naab and his sons
drank of it. The women filled a pail and portioned it out in basins and
washed their faces and hands with evident pleasure. Dave Naab whistled
as he wielded an axe vigorously on a cedar. It came home to Hare that
the tension of the past night and morning had relaxed. Whether to
attribute that fact to the distance from White