He made a dry camp that night in a sea of mesquite at the edge of a
sand plain, although, he knew he could not now be far from the Double A
range. And in the early light of the morning he found his judgment
vindicated, for stretching before him, still in a northeasterly
direction, he saw a great, green-brown level sweeping away from his
feet and melting into some rimming mountains--a vast, natural basin of
gigantic proportions.

Sanderson was almost at the end of his journey, it was early morning,
and he was in no hurry. He leisurely prepared his breakfast, sitting
on a flat rock as he ate, and scanning the basin.

Mere bigness had never impressed Sanderson; the West had shown him
greater vistas than this mammoth basin. And yet his eyes glowed as he
looked out and down at the country that lay, slumbering in the pure
white light of the dawn.

He saw, dotting the floor of the basin, the roofs of houses. From his
height they seemed to be close together, but Sanderson was not misled,
and he knew that they were separated by miles of virgin soil--of
sagebrush and yucca, and soapweed and other desert weeds that needed
not the magic of water to make them live.

When Sanderson finally mounted Streak, the sun was up. It took Streak
two hours to descend the slope leading down into the basin, and when
once horse and rider were down, Sanderson dismounted and patted
Streak's moist flanks.

"Some drop, eh, Streak?" he said. "But it didn't fool us none. We
knowed it was some distance, didn't we? An' they ain't foolin' us