When they started the actions of the dog showed Hare that Wolf was not
tracking a back-trail, but travelling by instinct. There were draws
which necessitated a search for a crossing, and areas of broken rock
which had to be rounded, and steep flat mesas rising in the path, and
strips of deep sand and canyons impassable for long distances. But the
dog always found a way and always came back to a line with the black spur
that Hare had marked. It still stood in sharp relief, no nearer than
before, receding with every step, an illusive landmark, which Hare began
to distrust.
Then quite suddenly it vanished in the ragged blue mass of the Ghost
Mountains. Hare had seen them several times, though never so distinctly.
The purple tips, the bold rock-ribs, the shadowed canyons, so sharp and
clear in the morning light--how impossible to believe that these were
only the deceit of the desert mirage! Yet so they were; even for the
Navajos they were spirit-mountains.
The splintered desert-floor merged into an area of sand. Wolf slowed his
trot, and Silvermane's hoofs sunk deep. Dismounting Hare labored beside
him, and felt the heat steal through his boots and burn the soles of his
feet.
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