"About forty miles, I reckon. We've got this, and three cans of tomatoes, but we want to go easy on 'em, because there's a good ride ahead of us after we hit Split Rock, an' that's the only water, except poison springs, between here an' the old Miszoo."
Bat, who had come up with the horses, pointed gloomily at the moon which had just topped the shoulder of a mountain. "She all squash down. Dat ain' no good she look so red." The others followed his gaze, and for a moment all stared at the distorted crimson oblong that hung low above the mountains. A peculiar dull luminosity radiated from the misshapen orb and bathed the bad lands in a flood of weird murky light.
"Come on," cried Tex, swinging into his saddle, "we'll hit the trail before this old Python here finds something else to forebode about. For all I care the moon can turn green, an' grow a hump like a camel just so she gives us light enough to see by." He led the way across the little plateau and the others followed. With eyes tight-shut and hands gripping the saddle-horn, Alice gave her horse full rein as he followed the Texan's down the narrow sloping ledge that answered for a trail. Nor did she open her eyes until the reassuring voice of the cowboy told her the danger was past.
Tex led the way around the base of the butte and down into the coulee he had followed the previous day. "We've got to take it easy this trip," he explained. "There ain't any too much light an' we can't take any chances on holes an' loose rocks. It'll be rough goin' all the way, but a good fast walk ought to put us half way, by daylight, an' then we can hit her up a little better." The moon swung higher and the light increased somewhat, but at best it was poor enough, serving only to bring out the general outlines of the trail and the bolder contour of the coulee's rim. No breath of the wind stirred the air that was cold, with a dank, clammy coldness—like the dead air of a cistern. As she rode, the girl noticed the absence of its buoyant tang. The horses' hoofs rang hollow and thin on the hard rock of the coulee bed, and even the frenzied yapping of a pack of coyotes, sounded uncanny and far away. Between these sounds the stillness seemed oppressive—charged with a nameless feeling of unwholesome portent. "It is the evil spell of the bad lands," thought the girl, and shuddered.
Dawn broke with the moon still high above the western skyline. The sides of the coulee had flattened and they traversed a country of low-lying ridges and undulating rock-basins. As the yellow rim of the sun showed above the crest of a far-off ridge, their ears caught the muffled roar of wind. From the elevation of a low hill the four gazed toward the west where a low-hung dust-cloud, lowering, ominous, mounted higher and higher as the roar of the wind increased. The air about them remained motionless—dead. Suddenly it trembled, swirled, and rushed forward to meet the oncoming dust-cloud as though drawn toward it by the suck of a mighty vortex.
"Dat better we gon' for hont de hole. Dat dust sto'm she raise hell."
"Hole up, nothin'!" cried the Texan; "How are we goin' to hole up—four of us an' five horses, on a pint of water an' three cans of tomatoes? When that storm hits it's goin' to be hot. We've just naturally got to make that water-hole! Come on, ride like the devil before she hits, because we're goin' to slack up considerable, directly."
The cowboy led the way and the others followed, urging their horses at top speed. The air was still cool, and as she rode, Alice glanced over her shoulder toward the dust cloud, nearer now, by many miles. The roar of the wind increased in volume. "It's like the roar of the falls at Niagara," she thought, and spurred her horse close beside the Texan's.
"Only seventeen or eighteen miles," she heard him say, as her horse drew abreast. "The wind's almost at our back, an' that'll help some." He jerked the silk scarf from his neck and extended it toward her. "Cover your mouth an' nose with that when she hits. An' keep your eyes shut. We'll make it all right, but it's goin' to be tough." A mile further on the storm burst with the fury of a hurricane. The wind roared down upon them like a blast from hell. Daylight blotted out, and where a moment before the sun had hung like a burnished brazen shield, was only a dim lightening of the impenetrable fog of grey-black dust. The girl opened her eyes and instantly they seemed filled with a thousand needles that bit and seared and caused hot stinging tears to well between the tight-closed lids. She gasped for breath and her lips and tongue went dry. Sand gritted against her teeth as she closed them, and she tried in vain to spit the dust from her mouth. She was aware that someone was tying the scarf about her head, and close against her ear she heard the voice of the Texan: "Breathe through your nose as long as you can an' then through your teeth. Hang onto your saddle-horn, I've got your reins. An' whatever you do, keep your eyes shut, this sand will cut 'em out if you don't." She turned her face for an instant toward the west, and the sand particles drove against her exposed forehead and eyelids with a force that caused the stinging tears to flow afresh. Then she felt her horse move slowly, jerkily at first, then more easily as the Texan swung him in beside his own.
"We're all right now," he shouted at the top of his lungs to make himself heard above the roar of the wind. And then it seemed to the girl they rode on and on for hours without a spoken word. She came to tell by the force of the wind whether they travelled along ridges, or wide low basins, or narrow coulees. Her lips dried and cracked, and the fine dust and sand particles were driven beneath her clothing until her skin smarted and chafed under their gritty torture. Suddenly the wind seemed to die down and the horses stopped. She heard the Texan swing to the ground at her side, and she tried to open her eyes but they were glued fast. She endeavoured to speak and found the effort a torture because of the thick crusting of alkali dust and sand that tore at her broken lips. The scarf was loosened and allowed to fall about her neck. She could hear the others dismounting and the loud sounds with which the horses strove to rid their nostrils of the crusted grime.