Hare soon yielded to the warmth of the blankets; a drowsiness that he endeavored in vain to throw off smothered his thoughts; sleep glued his eyelids tight.  They opened again some hours later.  For a moment he could not realize where he was; then the whip of the cold wind across his face, the woolly feel and smell of the blankets, and finally the steady trot of horses and the clink of a chain swinging somewhere under him, recalled the actuality of the night ride.  He wondered how many miles had been covered, how the drivers knew the direction and kept the horses in the trail, and whether the outlaws were in pursuit.  When Naab stopped the team and, climbing down, walked back some rods to listen, Hare felt sure that Dene was coming.  He listened, too, but the movements of the horses and the rattle of their harness were all the sounds he could hear.  Naab returned to his seat; the team started, now no longer in a trot; they were climbing.  After that Hare fell into a slumber in which he could hear the slow grating whirr of wheels, and when it ceased he awoke to raise himself and turn his ear to the back trail.  By-and-by he discovered that the black night had changed to gray; dawn was not far distant; he dozed and awakened to clear light.  A rose-red horizon lay far below and to the eastward; the intervening descent was like a rolling sea with league-long swells.

“Glad you slept some,” was Naab’s greeting.  “No sign of Dene yet.  If we can get over the divide we’re safe.  That’s Coconina there, Fire Mountain in Navajo meaning.  It’s a plateau low and narrow at this end, but it runs far to the east and rises nine thousand feet.  It forms a hundred miles of the north rim of the Grand Canyon.  We’re across the Arizona line now.”

Hare followed the sweep of the ridge that rose to the eastward, but to his inexperienced eyes its appearance carried no sense of its noble proportions.

“Don’t form any ideas of distance and size yet a while,” said Naab, reading Hare’s expression.  “They’d only have to be made over as soon as you learn what light and air are in this country.  It looks only half a mile to the top of the divide; well, if we make it by midday we’re lucky.  There, see a black spot over this way, far under the red wall?  Look sharp.  Good!  That’s Holderness’s ranch.  It’s thirty miles from here.  Nine Mile Valley heads in there.  Once it belonged to Martin Cole.  Holderness stole it.  And he’s begun to range over the divide.”

The sun rose and warmed the chill air.  Hare began to notice the increased height and abundance of the sagebrush, which was darker in color.  The first cedar-tree, stunted in growth, dead at the top, was the half-way mark up the ascent, so Naab said; it was also the forerunner of other cedars which increased in number toward the summit.  At length Hare, tired of looking upward at the creeping white wagons, closed his eyes.  The wheels crunched on the stones; the horses heaved and labored; Naab’s “Getup” was the only spoken sound; the sun beamed down warm, then hot; and the hours passed.  Some unusual noise roused Hare out of his lethargy.  The wagon was at a standstill.  Naab stood on the seat with outstretched arm.  George and Dave were close by their mustangs, and Snap Naab, mounted on a cream-colored pinto, reined him under August’s arm, and faced the valley below.