There
was no grass, and the choya alone flourished in that hard soil.
Darkness overtook the party as they unpacked beside a pool of water
deep under an overhanging shelf of lava. It had been a hard day.
The horses drank their fill, and then stood patiently with drooping
heads. Hunger and thirst appeased, and a warm fire cheered the
weary and foot-sore fugitives. Yaqui said, "Sleep." And so another
night passed.
Upon the following morning, ten miles or more up the slow-ascending
lava slope, Gale's attention was called from his somber search for
the less rough places in the trail.
"Dick, why does Yaqui look back?" asked Mercedes.
Gale was startled.
"Does he?"
"Every little while," replied Mercedes.
Gale was in the rear of all the other horses, so as to take, for
Mercedes's sake, the advantage of the broken trail. Yaqui was
leading Diablo, winding around a break. His head was bent as he
stepped slowly and unevenly upon the lava. Gale turned to look
back, the first time in several days. The mighty hollow of the
desert below seemed wide strip of red--wide strip of green--wide
strip of gray--streaking to purple peaks. It was all too vast, too
mighty to grasp any little details. He thought, of course, of Rojas
in certain pursuit; but it seemed absurded to look for him.
Yaqui led on, and Gale often glanced up from his task to watch the
Indian. Presently he saw him stop, turn, and look back. Ladd did
likewise, and then Jim and Thorne.
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