and lonely on the bare slope, pass out of sight behind the bluffs.
Shefford felt no fear--he really had little experience of physical
fear--but it was certain that he gritted his teeth and welcomed
whatever was to come to him. He had lived a narrow, insulated life
with his mind on spiritual things; his family and his congregation
and his friends--except that one new friend whose story had enthralled
him--were people of quiet religious habit; the man deep down in him
had never had a chance. He breathed hard as he tried to imagine the
world opening to him, and almost dared to be glad for the doubt that
had sent him adrift.

The tracks of the Indian girl's pony were plain in the sand. Also
there were other tracks, not so plain, and these Shefford decided had
been made by Willetts and the girl the day before. He climbed a ridge,
half soft sand and half hard, and saw right before him, rising in
striking form, two great yellow buttes, like elephant legs. He rode
between them, amazed at their height. Then before him stretched a
slowly ascending valley, walled on one side by the black mesa and on
the other by low bluffs. For miles a dark-green growth of greasewood
covered the valley, and Shefford could see where the green thinned and
failed, to give place to sand. He trotted his horse and made good time
on this stretch.

The day contrasted greatly with any he had yet experienced. Gray
clouds obscured the walls of rock a few miles to the west, and Shefford
saw squalls of snow like huge veils dropping down and spreading out.
The wind cut with the keenness of a knife. Soon he was chilled to the
bone. A squall swooped and roared down upon him, and the wind that
bore the driving white pellets of snow, almost like hail, was so
freezing bitter cold that the former wind seemed warm in comparison.