Midnight sees us started." Bud went out with ropes to catch and tie up the burros and their two saddle horses.

And as he went, for the first time in two months he whistled; a detail which Cash noted with a queer kind of smile.
Midnight and the moon riding high in the purple bowl of sky sprinkled thick with stars; with a little, warm wind stirring the parched weeds as they passed; with the burros shuffling single file along the dim trail which was the short cut through the hills to the Bend, Ed taking the lead, with the camp kitchen wabbling lumpily on his back, Cora bringing up the rear with her skinny colt trying its best to keep up, and with no pack at all; so they started on the long, long journey to the green country.
A silent journey it was for the most part.

The moon and the starry bowl of sky had laid their spell upon the desert, and the two men rode wordlessly, filled with vague, unreasoning regret that they must go.
Months they had spent with the desert, learning well every little varying mood; cursing it for its blistering heat and its sand storms and its parched thirst and its utter, blank loneliness.

Loving it too, without ever dreaming that they loved.

To-morrow they would face the future with the past dropping farther and farther behind.