burning under a sun made sullen red by the clouds of fine dust in the
air. Sparsely over the dull surface grew the few shrubs that could
survive the heat and dryness,--stunted, unlovely things of burr, spine,
thorn, or saw-edged leaf,--all bent one ways by the sand blown against
them,--bristling cactus and crouching mesquite bushes.

In the vast open of the blue above, a vulture wheeled with sinister
alertness; and far out among the dwarfed growing things a coyote skulked
knowingly. The weird, phantom-like beauty of it stole upon him, torn as
he was, while he looked over the dry, flat reaches. It was a good place
to die in, this lifeless waste languishing under an angry sun. And he
knew how it would come. Out to the south, as many miles as he should
have strength to walk, away from any road or water-hole, a great thirst
would come, and then delirium, perhaps bringing visions of cool running
water and green trees. He would hurry toward these madly until he
stumbled and fell and died. Then would come those cynical scavengers of
the desert, the vulture wheeling lower, the coyote skulking nearer,
pausing suspiciously to sniff and to see if he moved. Then a few poor
bones, half-buried by the restless sand, would be left to whiten and
crumble into particles of the same desert dust he looked upon. As for
his soul, he shuddered to think its dissolution could not also be made
as sure.

He stood looking out a long time, held by the weak spirit of a hope that
some reprieve might come, from within or from on high. But he saw only
the page wet with blood, and the words that burned through it into his
eyes; heard only the cries of women in their death-agony and the
stealthy movements of the bleeding shapes behind him. There was no ray
of hope to his eye nor note of it to his ear--only the cries and the
rustlings back of him, driving him out.