Then a
steeper incline, where the burros crept upward warily, led to a level
ledge heading to the left.
Mescal halted on a promontory. She, with her windblown hair, the gleam
of white band about her head, and a dash of red along the fringed
leggings, gave inexpressible life and beauty to that wild, jagged point
of rock, sharp against the glaring sky.
"This is Lookout Point," said Naab. "I keep an Indian here all the time
during daylight. He's a peon, a Navajo slave. He can't talk, as he was
born without a tongue, or it was cut out, but he has the best eyes of any
Indian I know. You see this point commands the farm, the crossing, the
Navajo Trail over the river, the Echo Cliffs opposite, where the Navajos
signal to me, and also the White Sage Trail."
The oasis shone under the triangular promontory; the river with its
rising roar wound in bold curve from the split in the cliffs. To the
right white-sloped Coconina breasted the horizon. Forward across the
Canyon line opened the many-hued desert.
"With this peon watching here I'm not likely to be surprised," said Naab.
"That strip of sand protects me at night from approach, and I've never
had anything to fear from across the river.
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