Once Stewart waited for Madeline, and as she came up he said:
“We’re going to have a storm.”
“That will be a relief. It’s so hot and dusty,” replied Madeline.
“Shall I call a halt and make camp?”
“Here? Oh no! What do you think best?”
“Well, if we have a good healthy thunder-storm it will be something new for your friends. I think we’d be wise to keep on the go. There’s no place to make a good camp. The wind would blow us off this slope if the rain didn’t wash us off. It’ll take all-day travel to reach a good camp-site, and I don’t promise that. We’re making slow time. If it rains, let it rain. The pack outfit is well covered. We will have to get wet.”
“Surely,” replied Madeline; and she smiled at his inference. She knew what a storm was in that country, and her guests had yet to experience one. “If it rains, let it rain.”
Stewart rode on, and Madeline followed. Up the slope toiled and nodded the pack-animals, the little burros going easily where the horses labored. Their packs, like the humps of camels, bobbed from side to side. Stones rattled down; the heat-waves wavered black; the dust puffed up and sailed. The sky was a pale blue, like heated steel, except where dark clouds peeped over the mountain crests. A heavy, sultry atmosphere made breathing difficult. Down the slope the trailing party stretched out in twos and threes, and it was easy to distinguish the weary riders.
Half a mile farther up Madeline could see over the foothills to the north and west and a little south, and she forgot the heat and weariness and discomfort for her guests in wide, unlimited prospects of sun-scorched earth. She marked the gray valley and the black mountains and the wide, red gateway of the desert, and the dim, shadowy peaks, blue as the sky they pierced. She was sorry when the bleak, gnarled cedar-trees shut off her view.
Then there came a respite from the steep climb, and the way led in a winding course through a matted, storm-wrenched forest of stunted trees. Even up to this elevation the desert reached with its gaunt hand. The clouds overspreading the sky, hiding the sun, made a welcome change. The pack-train rested, and Stewart and Madeline waited for the party to come up. Here he briefly explained to her that Don Carlos and his bandits had left the ranch some time in the night. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a faint wind rustled the scant foliage of the cedars. The air grew oppressive; the horses panted.