Gale
fell in behind. A bench of ground, covered with sparse greasewood,
sloped gently down to the deep, wide arroyo of Forlorn River.
Blanco Sol shied a few feet out of the trail. Peering low with keen
eyes, Gale made out three objects--a white sombrero, a blanket,
and a Mexican lying face down. The Yaqui had stolen upon this
sentinel like a silent wind of death. Just then a desert coyote
wailed, and the wild cry fitted the darkness and the Yaqui's deed.
Once under the dark lee of the river bank Yaqui caused another
halt, and he disappeared as before. It seemed to Gale that the
Indian started to cross the pale level sandbed of the river, where
stones stood out gray, and the darker line of opposite shore was
visible. But he vanished, and it was impossible to tell whether
he went one way or another. Moments passed. The horses held
heads up, looked toward the glimmering campfires and listened.
Gale thrilled with the meaning of it all--the night--the silence
--the flight--and the wonderful Indian stealing with the slow
inevitableness of doom upon another sentinel. An hour passed
and Gale seemed to have become deadened to all sense of hearing.
There were no more sounds in the world. The desert was as silent
as it was black. Yet again came that strange change in the tensity
of Gale's ear-strain, a check, a break, a vibration--and this time
the sound did not go nameless. It might have been moan of wind
or wail of far-distant wolf, but Gale imagined it was the strangling
death-cry of another guard, or that strange, involuntary utterance
of the Yaqui.
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