safer if not found near it. In either case, swift flight was still
imperative, and the shifting sand, beaten out of shape by the
constant wind, promised not to retain his footprints.

Though stiff from long riding, the change of motion soon brought
renewed vigor. Willock had grown thirsty, and as the sun rose
higher and beat down on him from an unclouded sky, his eyes searched
the plains eagerly for some shelter that promised water. He did not
look in vain. Against the horizon rose the low blue shapes of the
Wichita Mountains, looking at first like flat sheets of cardboard,
cut out by a careless hand and set upright in the sand.

As he toiled toward this refuge, not a living form appeared to
dispute his sovereignty of the desert world. His feet sank deep in
the sand, then trod lightly over vast stretches of short sun-burned
mesquit, then again traversed hot shifting reaches of naked sand.
The mountains seemed to recede as he advanced, and at times stifling
dust and relentless heat threatened to overpower him. With dogged
determination he told himself that he might be forced to drop from
utter exhaustion, but it would not be yet--not yet--one more mile,
or, at least, another half-mile. So he advanced, growing weaker,
breathing with more difficulty, but still muttering, "Not yet--not
just yet!"

The mountains had begun to spread apart. There were long ranges
and short. Here and there, a form that had seemed an integral part
of some range, defined itself as distinct from all others, lying
like an island of rock in a sea of unbroken desert. Willock was
approaching the Wichita Mountains from their southwestern extremity.
As far as he could see in one direction, the grotesque forms