“It looks to me jus’ as if"-the big rifleman licked his fingers carefully-"they all packed up and got out together, the way we left the Cleft.”
When they left the farm the character of the country began to change. Here the soil was spotted with patches of sandy gravel which grew larger. The clumps of trees dwindled to thickets of wiry thorn bushes, and there were outcroppings of the same shiny black rock which had nursed the killing vines by the river. Santee shot a long survey about as they halted on the top of a steep hill.
“This’s kinda like a desert. Glad we brought them apples-we might not hit water here.”
It was hot, hotter than it had seemed back when they were in the blue-green fields, for this sun-baked red-brown earth and blue sand reflected the heat. Dard’s skin, chafed by the pack straps, smarted when moisture trickled down between his shoulder blades. He licked his lips and tasted salt. Santee’s comment concerning lack of water had aroused his thirst.
Below them was a gorge. Dard blinked and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. No, that was no trick of shimmering heat-there was a bright gleaming line straight across the floor of the valley. He called it to Santee’s attention and the other focused the field glasses on it.
“A rail! But why only one?”
“We can get down over there,” Dard pointed. “Let’s see what it is.”
They made the hard climb down to verify the fact that a single metal rail did reach from one tunnel hole in the gorge wall to another tunnel directly across. Unable to discover anything else, they pulled themselves up the opposite cliff to continue the southward march.
It was midafternoon when they saw, rising into a cloudless sky, the smoke signal of the sled. And their strides became a trot until they panted up the side of a small mesa- plateau to the camp.
“How long,” Santee wanted to know later as they sucked appreciatively on golden apples, “is this trip gonna last?”