“We break wild mustangs along this stretch,” said Naab, drawing Hare away.  “It’s a fine run.  Wait till you see Mescal on Black Bolly tearing up the dust!  She’s a Navajo for riding.”

Three huge corrals filled a wide curved space in the wall.  In one corral were the teams that had hauled the wagons from White Sage; in another upward of thirty burros, drooping, lazy little fellows half asleep; in the third a dozen or more mustangs and some horses which delighted Hare.  Snap Naab’s cream pinto, a bay, and a giant horse of mottled white attracted him most.

“Our best stock is out on the range,” said Naab.  “The white is Charger, my saddle-horse.  When he was a yearling he got away and ran wild for three years.  But we caught him.  He’s a weight-carrier and he can run some.  You’re fond of a horse—­I can see that.”

“Yes,” returned Hare, “but I—­I’ll never ride again.”  He said it brightly, smiling the while; still the look in his eyes belied the cheerful resignation.

“I’ve not the gift of revelation, yet I seem to see you on a big gray horse with a shining mane.”  Naab appeared to be gazing far away.

The cottonwood grove, at the western curve of the oasis, shaded the five log huts where August’s grown sons lived with their wives, and his own cabin, which was of considerable dimensions.  It had a covered porch on one side, an open one on the other, a shingle roof, and was a roomy and comfortable habitation.

Naab was pointing out the school-house when he was interrupted by childish laughter, shrieks of glee, and the rush of little feet.

“It’s recess-time,” he said.

A frantic crowd of tousled-headed little ones were running from the log school-house to form a circle under the trees.  There were fourteen of them, from four years of age up to ten or twelve.  Such sturdy, glad-eyed children Hare had never seen.  In a few moments, as though their happy screams were signals, the shady circle was filled with hounds, and a string of puppies stepping on their long ears, and ruffling turkey-gobblers, that gobbled and gobbled, and guinea-hens with their shrill cries, and cackling chickens, and a lame wild goose that hobbled along alone.  Then there were shiny peafowls screeching clarion calls from the trees overhead, and flocks of singing blackbirds, and pigeons hovering over and alighting upon the house.  Last to approach were a woolly sheep that added his baa-baa to the din, and a bald-faced burro that walked in his sleep.  These two became the centre of clamor.  After many tumbles four chubby youngsters mounted the burro; and the others, with loud acclaim, shouting, “Noddle, Noddle, getup! getup!” endeavored to make him go.  But Noddle nodded and refused to awaken or budge.  Then an ambitious urchin of six fastened his hands in the fur of the sheep and essayed to climb to his back.  Willing hands assisted him.  “Ride him, Billy, ride him.  Getup, Navvy, getup!”