"Think y' could dig down to water with y'r axe, Wayland?"
The Ranger pointed to the wide cracks in the baked earth, dry as flour dust deep as they could see. The mule led the way at a run up the next sand roll.
"Think he smells water, Wayland?"
Another broad mesa rolled away to the silver strip of mountain on the sky line; but the fore ground broke into slabs and blocks of red stone. Wayland examined the trail. It twisted in and out among the rocks towards more broken country.
"There may be a canyon leading South over there," he pointed.
"Y' might try for a spring beneath that big rock. Looks green at the bottom."
A mist as of primrose or fire tinged the lakes of quivering light lying on the ochre-colored mesas. The sun hung close to the silver strip of mountain exaggerated to a huge dull blood-red shield.
"Wayland, is this desert light red or is it that A'm seein' red?"
The Ranger looked a third time at his companion. The old man sat more erect; but his eyes were blood shot. A puff of wind, a lift and fall and drift of sand, the wind met them in a peppering shower of hot shot.
"Is that a rain cloud comin' up?"