Doubt, fear, uncertainty ceased for Hare. With the first blast of
dust-scented air in his face he knew Wolf was leading him to Mescal. He
knew that the cry he had heard in his dream was hers, that the old
mysterious promise of the desert had at last begun its fulfilment. He
gave one sharp exultant answer to that call. The horizon, ever-widening,
lay before him, and the treeless plains, the sun-scorched slopes, the
sandy stretches, the massed blocks of black mesas, all seemed to welcome
him; his soul sang within him.
For Mescal was there. Far away she must be, a mere grain of sand in all
that world of drifting sands, perhaps ill, perhaps hurt, but alive,
waiting for him, calling for him, crying out with a voice that no
distance could silence. He did not see the sharp peaks as pitiless
barriers, nor the mesas and domes as black-faced death, nor the
moisture-drinking sands as life-sucking foes to plant and beast and man.
That painted wonderland had sheltered Mescal for a year. He had loved it
for its color, its change, its secrecy; he loved it now because it had
not been a grave for Mescal, but a home.
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