He was a mason; the levee
that buffeted back the rage of the Colorado in flood, the wall that
turned the creek, the irrigation tunnel, the zigzag trail cut on the face
of the cliff--all these attested his eye for line, his judgment of
distance, his strength in toil. He was a farmer, a cattle man, a grafter
of fruit-trees, a breeder of horses, a herder of sheep, a preacher, a
physician. Best and strangest of all in this wonderful man was the
instinct and the heart to heal. "I don't combat the doctrine of the
Mormon church," he said, "but I administer a little medicine with my
healing. I learned that from the Navajos." The children ran to him with
bruised heads, and cut fingers, and stubbed toes; and his blacksmith's
hands were as gentle as a woman's. A mustang with a lame leg claimed his
serious attention; a sick sheep gave him an anxious look; a steer with a
gored skin sent him running for a bucket of salve. He could not pass by
a crippled quail. The farm was overrun by Navajo sheep which he had
found strayed and lost on the desert. Anything hurt or helpless had in
August Naab a friend. Hare found himself looking up to a great and
luminous figure, and he loved this man.
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