So they started off.
It soon began to feel uncomfortable for the fat
boy; and he was heard to mumble more or less to himself; but Billie was a “stayer,” as Adrian called it; and once he embarked on an undertaking he would not easily give up. So he mopped his reeking forehead, and kept everlastingly at it, even urging his pony to renewed exertions; though the wise animal seemed to know there was no use trying to make haste while plodding through these sand hills.
“Well, I never knew before I came out here, that a desert was like this,” Billie had blurted out once, when Adrian came alongside, and he just felt that he had to say something.
“Few people do know anything about it until they see with their own eyes,” returned the other boy; “for of course you believed that it must be perfectly flat, and as level as a billiard table, didn’t you?”
“That’s right,” returned the frank Billie; “and here it’s all sand hills, many of ’em equal to little mountains, and all frilled and scolloped like. That’s where the wind makes its fancy work, I take it. Many a time I’ve seen dry snow cut like that; and sand acts just the same way, don’t it?”
“Exactly,” answered Adrian; “and as we’ve been moving along for nearly two hours now, look back and see where the mountains we left lie.”
No sooner had Billie turned his head than he gave a cry of wonder.
“Why, they’ve gone!” he exclaimed; “blotted
right out of sight, too. Never saw anything like it before, believe me. It must be the glare of the sun on all this white sand that does it. Only for the dark glasses we’re wearing, that same would be making us nearly blind, I take it.”