bare shale slide. The light seemed to stand in the very center of the
slide, no more than a mile away.

William stopped when Casey pulled on the reins he had fashioned from the
lead rope, and turned stiffly so that he faced the light. Casey kicked him
gently with his heels to urge him forward, for in spite of what his reason
told him about the shale slide his instinct was to go straight to the
light. But William began to shiver and tremble, and to swing slowly away.
Casey tried to prevent it, but the mule came out in William. He laid his
good ear flat along his neck as far as it would go, and took little,
nipping steps until he had turned with his tail to the light. Then he
thrust his fawn-colored muzzle to the stars and brayed and brayed, his
good ear working like a pump handle as he tore the sounds loose from his
vitals.

Casey cursed him in a whisper, having no voice left. He kicked William in
the flanks, having no other means of coercion at hand. But kicking never
yet altered the determination of a mule, and cursing a mule in a whisper
is like blowing your breath against the sail of a becalmed sloop. William
kept his tail toward the light, and furthermore he momentarily drew his
tail farther and farther from that spot. Now and then he would turn his
head and glance back, and immediately increase his pace a little. He was
long past the point where he had strength to trot, but he could walk, and
he did walk and carry Casey on his back, still whispering condemnation.

They did not travel all night. Casey looked at the Big Dipper and judged
it was midnight when they stopped on the brink of a deep canyon, halted
there in William's sheer despair because the light appeared suddenly on
the high point of a hill directly ahead of them. William's voice was gone
like Casey's, so that he, too, cursed in a whisper with a spasmodic
indrawing of ribs and a wheezing in his throat.

When it was plain that the mule had stopped permanently, Casey slid off
William's back and lay down without knowing or caring much whether he
would ever get up again. He said he wasn't hungry--much; but his mouth was
too full of tongue, he added grimly.

He lay and watched through half-closed, staring eyes the light that mocked
him so. His dulling senses told him that it was no camp fire, nor any
light made by human hands. He did not know what it was. He didn't care any
more. William crumpled up and lay down beside him, breathing heavily. It
was getti