Hardie fed
his men and horses on mesquit bean, a plant heretofore considered
poisonous. For water he was forced to depend upon the cactus,
draining the fluid secreted at the heart of the plant.
With faces blistered by the sun and caked with alkali, blue
shirts faded to a purple tinge, and trousers and accouterments
covered with a gray, powdery dust, the soldiers rode on silently
and determinedly. Hour after hour the troop flung itself across
the plains and into the heart of the Lava Beds, each day cutting
down the Apache lead.
CHAPTER XIII
The Atonement
False dawn in the Lava Beds of Arizona. The faint tinge on the
eastern horizon fades, and the stars shine the more brilliantly
in the brief, darkest hour before the true daybreak. An icy wind
sweeps down canons and over mesas, stinging the marrow of the
wayfarer's bones. In the heavens, the innumerable stars burn
steadily in crystal coldness. Shadows lie in Stygian blackness
at foot of rock and valley. Soft and clear the lights of night
swathe the uplands. An awesome silence hangs over the desert.
Hushed and humbled by the immensity of space, one expects to hear
the rush of worlds through the universe. At times the bosom
swells with a wild desire to sing and shout in the glory of pure
living.
The day comes quickly; the sun, leaping edge of the world, floods
mesa and canon, withering, sparing no living thing, lavishing
reds and purples, blues and violets upon canon walls and
wind-sculptured rocks.
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