Chapter 15

A PICTURE

A hundred miles west from the shack, stretching away from it in an almost 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-waves ascending, this expanse presented an unutterably drear and lonesome aspect. It terminated, or partly terminated--swerving off into the south beyond--in a long sand-dune running northeast and southwest. This mighty roll lay brooding, as did the world-old expanse fringing it, in the silence of late morning. Overhead a turquoise sky, low, spotless, likewise brooding, dipped down gracefully to the horizon around--a horizon like an immense girdle, a girdle which, as one journeyed along, seemed to accompany him, rapidly if he moved rapidly, slowly if he moved slowly--an immense circle of which he was the center. The sun was glaring, and revealed here and there out of the drifts a bleached skeleton, mutely proclaiming the sun as overlord, while over all, around and about and within this throbbing furnace, there seemed to lurk a voice, a voice of but a softly lisped word--solitude.

Suddenly, like a mere dot against the skyline, there appeared over the giant dune to the north a single horseman. A moment he seemed to pause on the crest, then began the long descent, slowly, with almost imperceptible movement. He was not more than under way when another dot appeared 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 third dot appeared, two dots close beside each other, and these, like the others, dipping into the descent with almost imperceptible movement, for all the world like flies reluctantly entering a giant saucer. And then appeared another, the fifth, and then no more. The last also seemed to pause a brief moment on the crest, and also dipped with almost imperceptible movement into the long descent.

They struck the floor of the furnace. Details began to emerge. One was a fat man, another was a gaunt man, a third was a little man--all smooth of face. Then there was a man with a scrubby beard. And there was another smooth-faced man, riding a little apart from the others, a little more alert, perhaps, his garments not their garments, his horse a little rounder of outline, a little more graceful of movement. They might have been in conversation, these riders out of the solitude. But all were heavily armed. And all rode slowly, leisurely, taking their own good time, as if this in itself was duty, with orders uncertain, or with no orders at all. They rode on across the desert within the desert, presenting three-quarter profile, then, with an hour passing, full profile, then, with another hour passing, quarter profile, and now, with yet another hour passing, five agreeable backs--broad, most of them, all topped with sombreros, and all motionless save for the movement of their mounts. On and on they rode into the south, underneath a blistering sun at 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 the eye. The arid and level floor was again clean of movement. The sun glared, revealing here and there out of the drifts a bleached skeleton, in this speechless thing mutely proclaiming its own sway. Beneath the sun 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-dune running to northeast and southwest. Skirting this dune, reaching to it out of the east, then swerving off to the south beyond, lay the almost unbroken expanse, the desert within the desert, its dead, flat, monotonous brown relieved here and there with alternating sagebrush and cactus and _amole_, stretching back a distance of a hundred miles to the shack.