From where Hare lay, resting a weary body, he could see down into the depression which his position guarded.  Naab built up the fire; Piute peeled potatoes with deliberate care; Mescal, on her knees, her brown arms bare, kneaded dough in a basin; Wolf crouched on the ground, and watched his mistress; Black Bolly tossed her head, elevating the bag on her nose so as to get all the grain.

Naab called him to supper, and when Hare set to with a will on the bacon and eggs, and hot biscuits, he nodded approvingly.  “That’s what I want to see,” he said approvingly.  “You must eat.  Piute will get deer, or you may shoot them yourself; eat all the venison you can.  Remember what Scarbreast said.  Then rest.  That’s the secret.  If you eat and rest you will gain strength.”

The edge of the wall was not a hundred paces from the camp; and when Hare strolled out to it after supper, the sun had dipped the under side of its red disc behind the desert.  He watched it sink, while the golden-red flood of light grew darker and darker.  Thought seemed remote from him then; he watched, and watched, until he saw the last spark of fire die from the snow-slopes of Coconina.  The desert became dimmer and dimmer; the oasis lost its outline in a bottomless purple pit, except for a faint light, like a star.

The bleating of sheep aroused him and he returned to camp.  The fire was still bright.  Wolf slept close to Mescal’s tent; Piute was not in sight; and Naab had rolled himself in blankets.  Crawling into his bed, Hare stretched aching legs and lay still, as if he would never move again.  Tired as he was, the bleating of the sheep, the clear ring of the bell on Black Bolly, and the faint tinkle of lighter bells on some of the rams, drove away sleep for a while.  Accompanied by the sough of the wind through the cedars the music of the bells was sweet, and he listened till he heard no more.

A thin coating of frost crackled on his bed when he awakened; and out from under the shelter of the cedar all the ground was hoar-white.  As he slipped from his blankets the same strong smell of black sage and juniper smote him, almost like a blow.  His nostrils seemed glued together by some rich piny pitch; and when he opened his lips to breathe a sudden pain, as of a knife-thrust, pierced his lungs.  The thought following was as sharp as the pain.  Pneumonia!  What he had long expected!  He sank against the cedar, overcome by the shock.  But he rallied presently, for with the reestablishment of the old settled bitterness, which had been forgotten in the interest of his situation, he remembered that he had given up hope.  Still, he could not get back at once to his former resignation.  He hated to acknowledge that the wildness of this desert canyon country, and the spirit it sought to instil in him, had wakened a desire to live.  For it meant only more to give up.  And after one short instant of battle he was himself again.  He put his hand under his flannel shirt and felt of the soreness of his lungs.  He found it not at the apex of the right lung, always the one sensitive spot, but all through his breast.  Little panting breaths did not hurt; but the deep inhalation, which alone satisfied him filled his whole chest with thousands of pricking needles.  In the depth of his breast was a hollow that burned.