Not a tree or shrub or flowering plant or blade of grass relieved the arid wastes of the Death Valley.
It was a ghostly, forbidding sight.
Even at that distance with a glass Frank was enabled to see the forms of the victims of the gases strewn along the sandy trail of death.
For a time the travelers gazed upon the scene.
Then Frank aroused himself.
“This will never do!” he cried. “We are losing time here.”
“Dat am a fac’, Marse Frank,” cried Pomp.
“Begorra, yez won’t go ahead will yez?” asked Barney.
“I don’t think we will follow the sandy trail of death,” replied Frank. “But I would like to know where Mason’s den is.”
At this moment a sudden startling sound smote upon the ears of all.