Free Zane Grey by The Heritage of the Desert

Jack. There's Piute—how do? how're the sheep?"
    A short, squat Indian, good-humored of face, shook his black head till
the silver rings danced in his ears, and replied: "Bad—damn coyotee!"
    "Piute—shake with Jack. Him shoot coyote—got big gun," said Naab.
    "How-do-Jack?" replied Piute, extending his hand, and then straightway
began examining the new rifle. "Damn—heap big gun!"
    "Jack, you'll find this Indian one you can trust, for all he's a Piute
outcast," went on August. "I've had him with me ever since Mescal found
him on the Coconina Trail five years ago. What Piute doesn't know about
this side of Coconina isn't worth learning."
    In a depression sheltered from the wind lay the camp. A fire burned in
the centre; a conical tent, like a tepee in shape, hung suspended from a
cedar branch and was staked at its four points; a leaning slab of rock
furnished shelter for camp supplies and for the Indian, and at one end a
spring gushed out. A gray-sheathed cedar-tree marked the entrance to
this hollow glade, and under it August began preparing Hare's bed.
    "Here's the place you're to sleep, rain or shine or snow," he said. "Now
I've spent my life sleeping on the ground, and mother earth makes the
best bed. I'll dig out a little pit in this soft mat of needles; that's
for your hips. Then the tarpaulin so; a blanket so. Now the other
blankets. Your feet must be a little higher than your head; you really
sleep down hill, which breaks the wind. So you never catch cold. All
you need do is to change your position according to the direction of the
wind. Pull up the blankets, and then the long end of the tarpaulin. If
it rains or snows cover your head, and sleep, my lad, sleep to the song
of the wind!"
    From where Hare lay, resting a weary body, he could see down into the
depression which his position guarded. Naab built up the fire; Piute
peeled potatoes with deliberate care; Mescal, on her knees, her brown
arms bare, kneaded dough in a basin; Wolf crouched on the ground, and
watched his mistress; Black Bolly tossed her head, elevating the bag on
her nose so as to get all the grain.
    Naab called him to supper, and when Hare set to with a will on the bacon
and eggs, and hot biscuits, he nodded approvingly. "That's what I want to
see," he said approvingly. "You must eat. Piute will get deer, or you
may shoot them yourself; eat all the venison you can. Remember what
Scarbreast said. Then rest. That's the secret. If you eat and rest you
will gain strength."
    The edge of the wall was not a hundred paces from the camp; and when Hare
strolled out to it after supper, the sun had dipped the under side of its
red disc behind the desert. He watched it sink, while the golden-red
flood of light grew darker and darker. Thought seemed remote from him
then; he watched, and watched, until he saw the last spark of fire die
from the snow-slopes of Coconina. The desert became dimmer and dimmer;
the oasis lost its outline in a bottomless purple pit, except for a faint
light, like a star.
    The bleating of sheep aroused him and he returned to camp. The fire was
still bright. Wolf slept close to Mescal's tent; Piute was not in sight;
and Naab had rolled himself in blankets. Crawling into his bed, Hare
stretched aching legs and lay still, as if he would never move again.
Tired as he was, the bleating of the sheep, the clear ring of the bell on
Black Bolly, and the faint tinkle of lighter bells on some of the rams,
drove away sleep for a while. Accompanied by the sough of the wind
through the cedars the music of the bells was sweet, and he listened till
he heard no more.
    A thin coating of frost crackled on his bed when he awakened; and out
from under the shelter of the cedar all the ground was hoar-white. As he
slipped from his blankets the same strong smell of black sage and juniper
smote him, almost like a blow. His nostrils seemed glued together by
some rich piny pitch; and when he opened his lips to breathe a sudden
pain, as of a knife-thrust,