To search for any living creatures in that borderless domain of colored dune, of shifting cloud of sand, of purple curtain shrouding mesa and dome, appeared the vainest of all human endeavors.  It seemed a veritable rainbow realm of the sun.  At first only the beauty stirred Hare—­he saw the copper belt close under the cliffs, the white beds of alkali and washes of silt farther out, the wind-ploughed canyons and dust-encumbered ridges ranging west and east, the scalloped slopes of the flat tableland rising low, the tips of volcanic peaks leading the eye beyond to veils and vapors hovering over blue clefts and dim line of level lanes, and so on, and on, out to the vast unknown.  Then Hare grasped a little of its meaning.  It was a sun-painted, sun-governed world.  Here was deep and majestic Nature eternal and unchangeable.  But it was only through Eschtah’s eyes that he saw its parched slopes, its terrifying desolateness, its sleeping death.

When the old chieftain’s lips opened Hare anticipated the austere speech, the import that meant only pain to him, and his whole inner being seemed to shrink.

“The White Prophet’s child of red blood is lost to him,” said Eschtah.  “The Flower of the Desert is as a grain of drifting sand.”

XIII THE SOMBRE LINE

August Naab hoped that Mescal might have returned in his absence; but to Hare such hope was vain.  The women of the oasis met them with gloomy faces presaging bad news, and they were reluctant to tell it.  Mescal’s flight had been forgotten in the sterner and sadder misfortune that had followed.

Snap Naab’s wife lay dangerously ill, the victim of his drunken frenzy.  For days after the departure of August and Jack the man had kept himself in a stupor; then his store of drink failing, he had come out of his almost senseless state into an insane frenzy.  He had tried to kill his wife and wreck his cottage, being prevented in the nick of time by Dave Naab, the only one of his brothers who dared approach him.  Then he had ridden off on the White Sage trail and had not been heard from since.

The Mormon put forth all his skill in surgery and medicine to save the life of his son’s wife, but he admitted that he had grave misgivings as to her recovery.  But these in no manner affected his patience, gentleness, and cheer.  While there was life there was hope, said August Naab.  He bade Hare, after he had rested awhile, to pack and ride out to the range, and tell his sons that he would come later.

It was a relief to leave the oasis, and Hare started the same day, and made Silver Cup that night.  As he rode under the low-branching cedars toward the bright camp-fire he looked about him sharply.  But not one of the four faces ruddy in the glow belonged to Snap Naab.

“Hello, Jack,” called Dave Naab, into the dark.  “I knew that was you.  Silvermane sure rings bells when he hoofs it down the stones.  How’re you and dad? and did you find Mescal?  I’ll bet that desert child led you clear to the Little Colorado.”