tips glistened and grew higher, and stood out in startling
relief. Some one said they could be seen two hundred miles across
the desert, and were a landmark and a fascination to all
travelers thitherward.

I never raised my eyes to the north that I did not draw my breath
quickly and grow chill with awe and bewilderment with the marvel
of the desert. The scaly red ground descended gradually; bare red
knolls, like waves, rolled away northward; black buttes reared
their flat heads; long ranges of sand flowed between them like
streams, and all sloped away to merge into gray, shadowy
obscurity, into wild and desolate, dreamy and misty nothingness.

"Do you see those white sand dunes there, more to the left?"
asked Emmett. "The Little Colorado runs in there. How far does it
look to you?"

"Thirty miles, perhaps," I replied, adding ten miles to my
estimate.

"It's seventy-five. We'll get there day after to-morrow. If the
snow in the mountains has begun to melt, we'll have a time
getting across."

That afternoon, a hot wind blew in my face, carrying fine sand
that cut and blinded. It filled my throat, sending me to the
water cask till I was ashamed. When I fell into my bed at night,
I never turned. The next day was hotter; the wind blew harder;
the sand stung sharper.