Half way up he came
to the snow and counted the tracks of three horses. At twilight he rode
into the glade where August Naab had waited for his Navajo friends.
There, in a sheltered nook among the rocks, he unsaddled Silvermane,
covered and fed him, built a fire, ate sparingly of his meat and bread,
and rolling up in his blanket, was soon asleep.
He was up and off before sunrise, and he came out on the western slope of
Coconina just as the shadowy valley awakened from its misty sleep into
daylight. Soon the Pink Cliffs leaned out, glimmering and vast, to
change from gloomy gray to rosy glow, and then to brighten and to redden
in the morning sun.
The snow thinned and failed, but the iron-cut horsetracks showed plainly
in the trail. At the foot of the mountain the tracks left the White Sage
trail and led off to the north toward the cliffs. Hare searched the red
sagespotted waste for Holderness's ranch. He located it, a black patch
on the rising edge of the valley under the wall, and turned Silvermane
into the tracks that pointed straight toward it.
The sun cleared Coconina and shone warm on his back; the Pink Cliffs
lifted higher and higher before him.
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