Always just over the next little rise he would hear it, or down in the next little draw; never close enough for him to discover the trick; never far enough away for him to give up the chase.

The stars he had been watching in camp swam through the purple immensity above him and slid behind the skyline.

Other stars as brilliant appeared and began their slow, swimming journey.

Pink rode, and stopped to listen, and rode on again until it seemed to him that he must be dreaming some terribly realistic nightmare.
He was sitting on his horse on a lava-crusted ridge, straining bloodshot eyes into the mesa that stretched dimly before him, when dawn came streaking the sky with blood orange and purple and crimson.

The stars were quenched in that flood of light; and Pink, looking now with clearer vision, saw that there was no living thing in sight save a coyote trotting home from his night's hunting.