THE UNTAMED




CHAPTER I


PAN OF THE DESERT

Even to a high-flying bird this was a country to be passed over
quickly. It was burned and brown, littered with fragments of rock,
whether vast or small, as if the refuse were tossed here after the
making of the world. A passing shower drenched the bald knobs of a
range of granite hills and the slant morning sun set the wet rocks
aflame with light. In a short time the hills lost their halo and
resumed their brown. The moisture evaporated. The sun rose higher and
looked sternly across the desert as if he searched for any remaining
life which still struggled for existence under his burning course.

And he found life. Hardy cattle moved singly or in small groups and
browsed on the withered bunch grass. Summer scorched them, winter
humped their backs with cold and arched up their bellies with famine,
but they were a breed schooled through generations for this fight
against nature. In this junk-shop of the world, rattlesnakes were
rulers of the soil. Overhead the buzzards, ominous black specks
pendant against the white-hot sky, ruled the air.