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These hunters had a poor outfit, excepting, of course, their horses. They were
young men, rangy in build, lean and hard from life in the saddle, bronzed like
Indians, still-faced, and keen-eyed. Two of them appeared to be tired out, and
lagged at the camp-fire duties. When the meager meal was prepared they sat,
cross-legged, before a ragged tarpaulin, eating and drinking in silence.
The sky in the west was rosy, slowly darkening. The valley floor billowed
away, ridged and cut, growing gray and purple and dark. Walls of stone, pink
with the last rays of the setting sun, inclosed the valley, stretching away
toward a long, low, black mountain range.
The place was wild, beautiful, open, with something nameless that made the
desert different from any other country. It was, perhaps, a loneliness of vast
stretches of valley and stone, clear to the eye, even after sunset. That black
mountain range, which looked close enough to ride to before dark, was a
hundred miles distant.
The shades of night fell swiftly, and it was dark by the time the hunters
finished the meal.


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