Bred of the Desert: A Horse and a Romance

  CHAPTER XIV

  A PICTURE

  A hundred miles west from the shack, stretching away from it in analmost unbroken expanse, was a desert within the desert. _Amole_and sagebrush and cactus vied with each other to relieve the dead, flat,monotonous brown. Without movement anywhere, save for the heat-wavesascending, this expanse presented an unutterably drear and lonesomeaspect. It terminated, or partly terminated--swerving off into the southbeyond--in a long sand-dune running northeast and southwest. This mightyroll lay brooding, as did the world-old expanse fringing it, in thesilence of late morning. Overhead a turquoise sky, low, spotless,likewise brooding, dipped down gracefully to the horizon around--ahorizon like an immense girdle, a girdle which, as one journeyed along,seemed to accompany him, rapidly if he moved rapidly, slowly if he movedslowly--an immense circle of which he was the center. The sun wasglaring, and revealed here and there out of the drifts a bleachedskeleton, mutely proclaiming the sun as overlord, while over all, aroundand about and within this throbbing furnace, there seemed to lurk avoice, a voice of but a softly lisped word--solitude.

  Suddenly, like a mere dot against the skyline, there appeared over thegiant dune to the north a single horseman. A moment he seemed to pauseon the crest, then began the long descent, slowly, with almostimperceptible movement. He was not more than under way when another dotappeared against the skyline, a second horseman, close behind the first,who, like the first, after seeming to pause a moment on the crest,dipped into the long slope with almost imperceptible movement. A thirddot appeared, two dots close beside each other, and these, like theothers, dipping into the descent with almost imperceptible movement, forall the world like flies reluctantly entering a giant saucer. And thenappeared another, the fifth, and then no more. The last also seemed topause a brief moment on the crest, and also dipped with almostimperceptible movement into the long descent.

  They struck the floor of the furnace. Details began to emerge. One was afat man, another was a gaunt man, a third was a little man--all smoothof face. Then there was a man with a scrubby beard. And there wasanother smooth-faced man, riding a little apart from the others, alittle more alert, perhaps, his garments not their garments, his horse alittle rounder of outline, a little more graceful of movement. Theymight have been in conversation, these riders out of the solitude. Butall were heavily armed. And all rode slowly, leisurely, taking their owngood time, as if this in itself was duty, with orders uncertain, or withno orders at all. They rode on across the desert within the desert,presenting three-quarter profile, then, with an hour passing, fullprofile, then, with another hour passing, quarter profile, and now, withyet another hour passing, five agreeable backs--broad, most of them, alltopped with sombreros, and all motionless save for the movement of theirmounts. On and on they rode into the south, underneath a blistering sunat full zenith. They became mere dots again upon the pulsating horizon,mere specks, and disappeared in the shimmering haze.

  Solitude, the voice of solitude, the death-stillness, throbbing silence,reigned once more. Not an animal, not an insect, not a tree, struck theeye. The arid and level floor was again clean of movement. The sunglared, revealing here and there out of the drifts a bleached skeleton,in this speechless thing mutely proclaiming its own sway. Beneath thesun the horizon, an immense girdle, swept round in unbroken line,pulsating. The turquoise sky hung low, spotless and shimmering,brooding, dipping smoothly down to the horizon and to the long sand-dunerunning to northeast and southwest. Skirting this dune, reaching to itout of the east, then swerving off to the south beyond, lay the almostunbroken expanse, the desert within the desert, its dead, flat,monotonous brown relieved here and there with alternating sagebrush andcactus and _amole_, stretching back a distance of a hundred milesto the shack.