The river sparkled like a coat of mail, the only unquiet thing on the
earth's incandescent surface. When the afternoon declined, shadows
crept from the opposite bluffs, slanted across the water, slipped
toward the little caravan and engulfed it. Through the front opening
Susan watched the road. There was a time when each dust ridge showed a
side of bright blue. To half-shut eyes they were like painted stripes
weaving toward the distance. Following them to where the trail bent
round a buttress, her glance brought up on Courant's mounted figure.
He seemed the vanishing point of these converging stripes, the object
they were striving toward, the end they aimed for. Reaching him they
ceased as though they had accomplished their purpose, led the woman's
eyes to him as to a symbolical figure that piloted the train to succor.
With every hour weakness grew on the doctor, his words were fewer. By
the ending of the first day, he lay silent looking out at the vista of
bluffs and river, his eyes shining in sunken orbits. As dusk fell
Courant dropped back to the wagon and asked Daddy John if the mules
could hold the pace all night.
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