The light went out.  Moreover, Casey’s star that he had used to mark the spot moved over to the west and finally slid out of sight altogether.  But Casey felt sure of the direction and he kept going doggedly toward the point where the light had been.  He says there wasn’t a rod where a snail couldn’t have outrun him, and when the sky streaked red and orange and the sun came up, he stood still and looked for a camp, and when he saw nothing at all but bare rock and bushes of the kind that love barrenness, he crawled under the nearest shade, tied William fast to the bush and slept.  You don’t realize your thirst so much when you are asleep, and you are saving your strength instead of wearing it out in the hot sun.  He remained there until the sun was almost out of sight behind a high peak.  Then he got up, untied William, mounted him without argument from either, and went on, keeping to the direction in which he had seen the light.

Even the little brown mule was having trouble now.  He wavered, he picked his footing with great care when a declivity dipped before him; he stopped every few yards and rested when he was making a climb.  As for Casey, he managed to hold himself on the narrow back of William, but that was all.  He understood perfectly that the next twenty-four hours would tell the story for him and for William.  He had a sturdy body however and a sturdy brain that had never weakened its hold on facts.  So he clung to his reason and pushed fear away from him and said doggedly that he would go forward as long as he could crawl or William could carry him, and he would die or he would not die, as Fate decided for him.  He wondered, too, about the camp whose fire he had seen.

Then he saw the light.  This time it burned suddenly clear and large and very bright, away off to the left of him where he had by daylight noticed a bare shale slide.  The light seemed to stand in the very center of the slide, no more than a mile away.

William stopped when Casey pulled on the reins he had fashioned from the lead rope, and turned stiffly so that he faced the light.  Casey kicked him gently with his heels to urge him forward, for in spite of what his reason told him about the shale slide his instinct was to go straight to the light.  But William began to shiver and tremble, and to swing slowly away.  Casey tried to prevent it, but the mule came out in William.  He laid his good ear flat along his neck as far as it would go, and took little, nipping steps until he had turned with his tail to the light.  Then he thrust his fawn-colored muzzle to the stars and brayed and brayed, his good ear working like a pump handle as he tore the sounds loose from his vitals.

Casey cursed him in a whisper, having no voice left.  He kicked William in the flanks, having no other means of coercion at hand.  But kicking never yet altered the determination of a mule, and cursing a mule in a whisper is like blowing your breath against the sail of a becalmed sloop.  William kept his tail toward the light, and furthermore he momentarily drew his tail farther and farther from that spot.  Now and then he would turn his head and glance back, and immediately increase his pace a little.  He was long past the point where he had strength to trot, but he could walk, and he did walk and carry Casey on his back, still whispering condemnation.