can't cross."

They were two days in riding back to the encampment. Eschtah received
them in dignified silence, expressive of his regret. When their time of
departure arrived he accompanied them to the head of the nearest trail,
which started down from Saweep Peak, the highest point of Echo Cliffs.
It was the Navajos' outlook over the Painted Desert.

"Mescal is there," said August Naab. "She's there with the slave Eschtah
gave her. He leads Mescal. Who can follow him there?"

The old chieftain reined in his horse, beside the time-hollowed trail,
and the same hand that waved his white friend downward swept up in slow
stately gesture toward the illimitable expanse. It was a warrior's
salute to an unconquered world. Hare saw in his falcon eyes the still
gleam, the brooding fire, the mystical passion that haunted the eyes of
Mescal.

"The slave without a tongue is a wolf. He scents the trails and the
waters. Eschtah's eyes have grown old watching here, but he has seen no
Indian who could follow Mescal's slave. Eschtah will lie there, but no
Indian will know the path to the place of his sleep. Mescal's trail is
lost in the sand. No man may find it. Eschtah's words are wisdom.
Look!"

To search for any living creatures in that borderless domain of colored
dune, of shifting cloud of sand, of purple curtain shrouding mesa and
dome, appeared the vainest of all human endeavors. It seemed a
veritable rainbow realm of the sun. At first only the beauty stirred
Hare--he saw the copper belt close under the cliffs, the white beds of