experienced a strange birth of hope. Adventure had called him, but
it was a vague and spiritual hope, a dream of promise, a nameless
attainment that fortified his wilder impulse.

As he rode around a corner of the stone house his horse snorted and
stopped. A lean, shaggy pony jumped at sight of him, almost displacing
a red long-haired blanket that covered an Indian saddle. Quick thuds
of hoofs in sand drew Shefford's attention to a corral made of peeled
poles, and here he saw another pony.

Shefford heard subdued voices. He dismounted and walked to an open
door. In the dark interior he dimly descried a high counter, a
stairway, a pile of bags of flour, blankets, and silver-ornamented
objects, but the persons he had heard were not in that part of the
house. Around another corner of the octagon-shaped wall he found
another open door, and through it saw goat-skins and a mound of dirty
sheep-wool, black and brown and white. It was light in this part of
the building. When he crossed the threshold he was astounded to see
a man struggling with a girl--an Indian girl. She was straining back
from him, panting, and uttering low guttural sounds. The man's face
was corded and dark with passion. This scene affected Shefford
strangely. Primitive emotions were new to him.

Before Shefford could speak the girl broke loose and turned to flee.
She was an Indian and this place was the uncivilized desert, but
Shefford knew terror when he saw it. Like a dog the man rushed after
her. It was instinct that made Shefford strike, and his blow laid the
man flat. He lay stunned a moment, then raised himself to a sitting
posture, his hand to his face, and the gaze he fixed upon Shefford
seemed to combine astonishment and rage.