A heavy weight on my feet stirred me from oblivion.  At first, when only half awake, I could not realize what had fallen on my bed, then hearing a deep groan I knew Moze had come back.  I was dropping off again when a strange, low sound caused my eyes to open wide.  The black night had faded to the gray of dawn.  The sound I recognized at once to be the Navajo’s morning chant.  I lay there and listened.  Soft and monotonous, wild and swelling, but always low and strange, the savage song to the break of day was exquisitely beautiful and harmonious.  I wondered what the literal meaning of his words could have been.  The significance needed no translation.  To the black shadows fading away, to the brightening of the gray light, to the glow of the east, to the morning sun, to the Giver of Life—­to these the Indian chanted his prayer.

Could there have been a better prayer?  Pagan or not, the Navajo with his forefathers felt the spiritual power of the trees, the rocks, the light and sun, and he prayed to that which was divinely helpful to him in all the mystery of his unintelligible life.

We did not crawl out that morning as early as usual, for it was to be a day of rest.  When we did, a mooted question arose—­whether we or the hounds were the more crippled.  Ranger did not show himself; Don could just walk and that was all; Moze was either too full or too tired to move; Sounder nursed a foot and Jude favored her lame leg.

After lunch we brightened up somewhat and set ourselves different tasks.  Jones had misplaced or lost his wire and began to turn the camp topsy-turvy in his impatient efforts to locate it.  The wire, however, was not to be found.  This was a calamity, for, as we asked each other, how could we muzzle lions without wire?  Moreover, a half dozen heavy leather straps which I had bought in Kanab for use as lion collars had disappeared.  We had only one collar left, the one that Jones had put on the red lioness.

Whereupon we began to blame each other, to argue, to grow heated and naturally from that to become angry.  It seems a fatality of campers along a wild trail, like explorers in an unknown land, to be prone to fight.  If there is an explanation of this singular fact, it must be that men at such time lose their poise and veneer of civilization; in brief, they go back.  At all events we had it hot and heavy, with the center of attack gradually focusing on Jones, and as he was always losing something, naturally we united in force against him.

Fortunately, we were interrupted by yells from the Navajo off in the woods.  The brushing of branches and pounding of hoofs preceded his appearance.  In some remarkable manner he had gotten a bridle on Marc, and from the way the big stallion hurled his huge bulk over logs and through thickets, it appeared evident he meant to usurp Jim’s ambition and kill the Navajo.  Hearing Emett yell, the Indian turned Marc toward camp.  The horse slowed down when he neared the glade and tried to buck.  But Navvy kept his head up.  With that Marc seemed to give way to ungovernable rage and plunged right through camp; he knocked over the dogs’ shelter and thundered down the ridge.