A little sand and meager grass gave a grayish tinge to
the strip of black ground between lava and plain.
That day, as the manner rather than the purpose of the Yaqui
changed, so there seemed to be subtle differences in the others
of the party. Gale himself lost a certain sickening dread, which
had not been for himself, but for Mercedes and Nell, and Thorne
and the rangers. Jim, good-natured again, might have been
patrolling the boundary line. Ladd lost his taciturnity and his
gloom changed to a cool, careless air. A mood that was almost defiance
began to be manifested in Thorne. It was in Mercedes, however, that Gale
marked the most significant change. Her collapse the preceding
day might never have been. She was lame and sore; she rode
her saddle sidewise, and often she had to be rested and helped;
but she had found a reserve fund of strength, and her mental
condition was not the same that it had been. Her burden of fear
had been lifted. Gale saw in her the difference he always felt in
himself after a few days in the desert. Already Mercedes and he,
and all of them, had begun to respond to the desert spirit.
Moreover, Yaqui's strange influence must have been a call to the
primitive.
Thirty miles of easy stages brought the fugitives to another
waterhole, a little round pocket under the heaved-up edge of lava.
There was spare, short, bleached grass for the horses, but no wood
for a fire. This night there was question and reply, conjecture,
doubt, opinion, and conviction expressed by the men of the party.
Pages:
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248