Rabbit lifted his head again, perking his ears forward toward a new sound
that had nothing weird or mysterious about it; a sound that was
essentially earthly, material, modern, the distant purr of a high-powered
automobile on the trail away to their right. Starr turned his face that
way, listening as the horse listened. It seemed to Helen May as though he
had become again earthy and material and modern, with the desert love
song but the fading memory of a dream. He listened, and she received the
impression that something more than idle curiosity held him intent upon
the sound.
The purring persisted, lessened, grew louder again. Starr still looked
that way, listening intently. The machine swept nearer, so that the clear
night air carried the sounds distinctly to where they stood. Starr even
caught the humming of the rear gears and knew that only now and then does
a machine have that peculiar, droning hum; Starr studied it, tried to
impress the sound upon his memory.
The trail looped around the head of a sandy draw and wound over the crest
of a low ridge before it straightened out for a three-mile level run in
the direction of San Bonito, miles away.
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