He threw the coat across the camel’s back, the buggy-spring and the bag secured by its knotted sleeves. Then he took the leading strap in his hand, spoke to the animal, and they moved out upon the desert.
Gard had no idea in which direction it was best to go, but he argued that the camel knew the plain, and its fastnesses. For himself, he had but one thought—to hide, to rest, to gather strength for vengeance. At that thought he stifled the cough that rose in his throat.
Once they were started he let the strap hang loose and gradually fell behind. The camel went forward a few paces in the direction ahead of them, but feeling no guidance, gradually deflected its course toward the west. Gard followed every movement eagerly, until presently they were going forward at a steady pace, as travelers with a definite aim.
The sun was well up now, and its beams warmed the man’s chilled, sore body. The desert was no longer gray, but a glowing yellow. Even the air was warm-hued, suffusing the landscape with a roseate loveliness that yet seemed less of life than of death.
Everywhere were the desert growths, travesties of vegetation, twisted, grotesque, ghostly gray and pale green in hues. A profound stillness, insistent, oppressive, was upon everything. The yellow sand, the glowing air, the cloudless dome of the sky, the far-off mountains, all seemed to soak up sound. The world lay hushed in fierce, tense quiet, as though waiting the appearance of some savage portent.
The camel did not hasten. Gard, walking beside it, had a feeling that the creature was very old. Its eyes were bright, its coat silky and fine, but deep under the hair’s soft luxuriance the man’s fingers felt the skin, wrinkled and folded over shrunken muscles.
But there was neither feebleness nor hesitation in the forward progress of the desert pilot. It moved forward with a sort of inexorableness, its padded feet making no sound on the hard sand, its gaze bent steadily ahead, its inscrutable visage wearing ever, a look of centuries-old scorn for all things made.
They passed a huge bull-snake sunning upon a rock, and here and there a silent bird flitted to or from its home in some thorn-guarded cholla. Once a coyote tossed lightly across their vision, a blown gray feather along the horizon, but no other signs of animal life stirred the death-like plain.
The sand grew warmer in the sun’s rays, till permeating heat radiated from it and hung over it everywhere, a palpable, shimmering mist of lavender and gold, between earth and air. By mid-forenoon the sun’s rays were oppressive, and they halted in the shadow of a giant suhuaro.
The camel, when the man released the leading-strap, lowered itself slowly to rest, doubling down its legs like the shutting of a jack-knife, and settling upon the sand with the curious, sighing grunt of old age.