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.