As I suspected that he
had lost his nerve on the Navajo reservation, I felt greatly annoyed,
and when he became frantic in his cries I promised to go down to
Beaver Creek to get him a drink of water, for I recalled to mind his
little daughter who bid me farewell with these words: "Adios, Senor
Americano, I charge you with the care of my padrecito. If you promise
me, I know that he will return to me safely."
I set out on my long night-walk, stumbling over rocks and boulders in
the darkness. It was a beautiful night, the crisp atmosphere was
laden with the fragrant exhalation of the nut pines and junipers and
there was not a breath of air stirring. I got down to water at
midnight, the time of moonrise, filled my canteen and started on the
return trip. Slowly I reascended the steep mesa, and when I reached
the summit I sat down on a rock in a thicket of junipers. The moon
had now risen above the trees and cast its dim light over an
enchanting scene. The sense of utter loneliness, a homesickness, a
feeling of premonition, stole over me, and weirdly I sensed the
presence of I knew not what. From the shadows spoke an owl, sadly,
anxiously, "Hoo, hoo! Where are you? You!" and his mate answered him
tenderly, seductively, "Tee, hee! Come to me! Me!"
In the west, far, far away, clustered a range of mountains, spread
out like an enormous horse-shoe and in its center arose the form of a
solitary hill.
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