The house of the Naabs was dark and still.  The dying council-fire cast flickering shadows under the black cottonwoods where the Navajos slept.  The faint breeze that rustled the leaves brought the low sullen roar of the river.

Hare guided Bolly into the thick dust of the lane, laid the bridle loosely on her neck for her to choose the trail, and silently rode out into the lonely desert night.

XIX UNLEASHED

Hare, listening breathlessly, rode on toward the gateway of the cliffs, and when he had passed the corner of the wall he sighed in relief.  Spurring Bolly into a trot he rode forward with a strange elation.  He had slipped out of the oasis unheard, and it would be morning before August Naab discovered his absence, perhaps longer before he divined his purpose.  Then Hare would have a long start.  He thrilled with something akin to fear when he pictured the old man’s rage, and wondered what change it would make in his plans.  Hare saw in mind Naab and his sons, and the Navajos sweeping in pursuit to save him from the rustlers.

But the future must take care of itself, and he addressed all the faculties at his command to cool consideration of the present.  The strip of sand under the Blue Star had to be crossed at night—­a feat which even the Navajos did not have to their credit.  Yet Hare had no shrinking; he had no doubt; he must go on.  As he had been drawn to the Painted Desert by a voiceless call, so now he was urged forward by something nameless.

In the blackness of the night it seemed as if he were riding through a vaulted hall swept by a current of air.  The night had turned cold, the stars had brightened icily, the rumble of the river had died away when Bolly’s ringing trot suddenly changed to a noiseless floundering walk.  She had come upon the sand.  Hare saw the Blue Star in the cliff, and once more loosed the rein on Bolly’s neck.  She stopped and champed her bit, and turned her black head to him as if to intimate that she wanted the guidance of a sure arm.  But as it was not forthcoming she stepped onward into the yielding sand.

With hands resting idly on the pommel Hare sat at ease in the saddle.  The billowy dunes reflected the pale starlight and fell away from him to darken in obscurity.  So long as the Blue Star remained in sight he kept his sense of direction; when it had disappeared he felt himself lost.  Bolly’s course seemed as crooked as the jagged outline of the cliffs.  She climbed straight up little knolls, descended them at an angle, turned sharply at wind-washed gullies, made winding detours, zigzagged levels that shone like a polished floor; and at last (so it seemed to Hare) she doubled back on her trail.  The black cliff receded over the waves of sand; the stars changed positions, travelled round in the blue dome, and the few that he knew finally sank below the horizon.  Bolly never lagged; she was like the homeward-bound horse, indifferent to direction because sure of it, eager to finish the journey because now it was short.  Hare was glad though not surprised when she snorted and cracked her iron-shod hoof on a stone at the edge of the sand.  He smiled with tightening lips as he rode into the shadow of a rock which he recognized.  Bolly had crossed the treacherous belt of dunes and washes and had struck the trail on the other side.