“All right, old fellow,” said Hare, “only go slow.  From the look of that foot I think you’ve turned back on a long trail.”

Again they faced the west, dog leading, man following, and addressed themselves to a gradual ascent.  When it had been surmounted Hare realized that his ride so far had brought him only through an anteroom; the real portal now stood open to the Painted Desert.  The immensity of the thing seemed to reach up to him with a thousand lines, ridges, canyons, all ascending out of a purple gulf.  The arms of the desert enveloped him, a chill beneath their warmth.

As he descended into the valley, keeping close to Wolf, he marked a straight course in line with a volcanic spur.  He was surprised when the dog, though continually threading jumbles of rock, heading canyons, crossing deep washes, and going round obstructions, always veered back to this bearing as true as a compass-needle to its magnet.

Hare felt the air growing warmer and closer as he continued the descent.  By mid-afternoon, when he had travelled perhaps thirty miles, he was moist from head to foot, and Silvermane’s coat was wet.  Looking backward Hare had a blank feeling of loss; the sweeping line of Echo Cliffs had retreated behind the horizon.  There was no familiar landmark left.

Sunset brought him to a standstill, as much from its sudden glorious gathering of brilliant crimsons splashed with gold, as from its warning that the day was done.  Hare made his camp beside a stone which would serve as a wind-break.  He laid his saddle for a pillow and his blanket for a bed.  He gave Silvermane a nose-bag full of water and then one of grain; he fed the dog, and afterward attended to his own needs.  When his task was done the desert brightness had faded to gray; the warm air had blown away on a cool breeze, and night approached.  He scooped out a little hollow in the sand for his hips, took a last look at Silvermane haltered to the rock, and calling Wolf to his side stretched himself to rest.  He was used to lying on the ground, under the open sky, out where the wind blew and the sand seeped in, yet all these were different on this night.  He was in the Painted Desert; Wolf crept close to him; Mescal lay somewhere under the blue-white stars.

He awakened and arose before any color of dawn hinted of the day.  While he fed his four-footed companions the sky warmed and lightened.  A tinge of rose gathered in the east.  The air was cool and transparent.  He tried to cheer Wolf out of his sad-eyed forlornness, and failed.

Hare vaulted into the saddle.  The day had its possibilities, and while he had sobered down from his first unthinking exuberance, there was still a ring in his voice as he called to the dog: 

“On, Wolf, on, old boy!”

Out of the east burst the sun, and the gray curtain was lifted by shafts of pink and white and gold, flashing westward long trails of color.