Soon afterward he was riding Nack-yal on the rough and winding trail up through the broken country of cliffs and canyon to the great league -long sage and cedar slope of the mountain.  It was weeks since he had ridden the mustang.  Nack-yal was fat and lazy.  He loved his master, but he did not like the climb, and so fell far behind the lean and wiry pony that carried Nas Ta Bega.  The sage levels were as purple as the haze of the distance, and there was a bitter-sweet tang on the strong, cool wind.  The sun was gold behind the dark line of fringe on the mountain-top.  A flock of sheep swept down one of the sage levels, looking like a narrow stream of white and black and brown.  It was always amazing for Shefford to see how swiftly these Navajo sheep grazed along.  Wild mustangs plunged out of the cedar clumps and stood upon the ridges, whistling defiance or curiosity, and their manes and tails waved in the wind.

Shefford mounted slowly to the cedar bench in the midst of which were hidden the few hogans.  And he halted at the edge to dismount and take a look at that downward-sweeping world of color, of wide space, at the wild desert upland which from there unrolled its magnificent panorama.

Then he passed on into the cedars.  How strange to hear the lambs bleating again!  Lambing-time had come early, but still spring was there in the new green of grass, in the bright upland flower.  He led his mustang out of the cedars into the cleared circle.  It was full of colts and lambs, and there were the shepherd-dogs and a few old rams and ewes.  But the circle was a quiet place this day.  There were no Indians in sight.  Shefford loosened the saddle-girths on Nack-yal and, leaving him to graze, went toward the hogan of Hosteen Doetin.  A blanket was hung across the door.  Shefford heard a low chanting.  He waited beside the door till the covering was pulled in, then he entered.

Hosteen Doetin met him, clasped his hand.  The old Navajo could not speak; his fine face was working in grief; tears streamed from his dim old eyes and rolled down his wrinkled cheeks.  His sorrow was no different from a white man’s sorrow.  Beyond him Shefford saw Nas Ta Bega standing with folded arms, somehow terrible in his somber impassiveness.  At his feet crouched the old woman, Hosteen Doetin’s wife, and beside her, prone and quiet, half covered with a blanket, lay Glen Naspa.

She was dead.  To Shefford she seemed older than when he had last seen her.  And she was beautiful.  Calm, cold, dark, with only bitter lips to give the lie to peace!  There was a story in those lips.

At her side, half hidden under the fold of blanket, lay a tiny bundle.  Its human shape startled Shefford.  Then he did not need to be told the tragedy.  When he looked again at Glen Naspa’s face he seemed to understand all that had made her older, to feel the pain that had lined and set her lips.