Only sparse cactus and
weathered ledges dotted the great low roll of a rising escarpment.
Yaqui suited the gait of his horse to the lay of the land, and his
followers accepted his pace. There were canter and trot, and
swift walk and slow climb, and long swing--miles up and down
and forward. The sun soared hot. The heated air lifted, and
incoming currents from the west swept low and hard over the
barren earth. In the distance, all around the horizon,
accumulations of dust seemed like ranging, mushrooming yellow
clouds.
Yaqui was the only one of the fugitives who never looked back.
Mercedes did it the most. Gale felt what compelled her, he could
not resist it himself. But it was a vain search. For a thousand
puffs of white and yellow dust rose from that backward sweep
of desert, and any one of them might have been blown from under
horses' hoofs. Gale had a conviction that when Yaqui gazed back
toward the well and the shining plain beyond, there would be reason
for it. But when the sun lost its heat and the wind died down Yaqui
took long and careful surveys westward from the high points on the
trail. Sunset was not far off, and there in a bare, spotted valley
lay Coyote Tanks, the only waterhole between Papago Well and
the Sonoyta Oasis. Gale used his glass, told Yaqui there was no
smoke, no sign of life; still the Indian fixed his falcon eyes
on distant spots looked long. It was as if his vision
could not detect what reason or cunning or intuition, perhaps
an instinct, told him was there.
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