I saw the tracks of two horses in the ground which was becoming muddy. There was a slither with them which might or might not have been the trail of wagon wheels. I followed the hoof-pocks in the mud for some miles. I went as fast as I could, for they were very recent, though just how recent I haven’t the skill to tell, and later I was rewarded by the sight of a wagon trundling ahead of me. It was growing evening by then, the air was smoky, the sun was not visible except by its rays which were broken by the atmosphere, turned here and there at peculiar angles, and magnified into red and orange lights floating in blues. I ran and shouted, but for some time I could manage only to keep the blessed sight always on the horizon.

At last, tired out, the reds and oranges submitting to the blues and merging into them, afraid of losing the only hope of companionship I’d had for wild weeks, I stood quite still and gave all my lungs to bawling at the precious, little, receding haze.

It disappeared into the evening as I shouted. I sat down where I was in the mud, and wept bitterly. I was also panting painfully. Presently I heard creaking and jingling and just as the shades of night fell finally over all the colours of day the wagon materialized beside me. But it was night: having been left to the ruthlessness of night on the plains, whose every trick and treachery I knew so well, I no longer trusted. I remained sitting. The wagon, like a wholesome messenger from the day, floundered in the night passing me: and as the wagoner called I realized that I had not been abandoned and leapt to my feet.

“Where be you? Who called out?” the wagoner was shouting. His voice was becoming increasingly hopeless of receiving an answer.

“Here,” I cried. “Here.”

I ran forward, desperate not to be lost again, and my hand met the unfamiliar nose of something that backed. The nose snorted.

Horse, I thought. I’ve never met Horse.

“Here,” I said again.

A groping hand caught eventually at my collar. “In the wagon with you,” said the voice.

Half hauled, I obeyed thankfully.

On the way back the wagoner asked questions over his shoulder. Not many questions, just How long had I been lost? and Was my village near here? I was already in love with the burr of his voice. I answered weakly from my new pile of straw that I was making for the city ahead and had no means so had travelled on foot across the Wide Plain. The wagoner’s cottage was a pink light which grew out of the night, became larger, threw off its surrounding haze, and became yellow.

He whoa’d the horses.