sions. The naked red plain
stretched flat like the colossal background of a screen, over which
writhed a huge dragon, spined with many horns, headless, trailing its
tortuous way over the red world. Sometimes it was as unreal as a
fever-haunted dream, a drug-inspired nightmare, when a Chinese screen,
perchance, has stood at the foot of the sleeper's bed. Sometimes the
dragon curled itself into a ball, and the foreman sung out that they were
milling, and the men turned and rode away from it, then dashed back at it,
after getting the necessary momentum, entered like a flying wedge, fought
their way into the rocking sea of surging bodies, shouted from their
thirst-parched throats imprecations that were lost in the dull, sullen
roar. Then the dragon would uncoil and again trail its way over the red
waste-lands.

A red sun had begun to set over a red earth, and the men who had been out
since noon-scouring the country for water, returned to say that none had
been found, and they began to look into each other's faces for the answer
that none could give. At sunset they made a dry camp; there was but enough
water left to cook with. Each man received, as a thirst-quenching ration,
a can of tomatoes. After supper they consulted, and it was agreed to trail
the herd till midnight, taking advantage of the coolness to hurry them on
as fast as possible to Green River. The grave nature of their plight was
indicated by the fact that no one smoked after supper. Silent, sullen,
they sat round, waiting for the foreman to give the order to advance. He
waited for the moon to come up. Slowly it rose over the Bad Land Hills and
hung round and full like a gigantic lantern. The watches were arranged for
the night with a double guard. Every man in the outfit was beginning to
have a feeling of panic that communicated itself to every other man, and
as they looked at the herd, tractable now no longer, but a blind force
that they must take chances with through the long watches of the night,
while the thirst grew in the beasts' parched throats, they foresaw what
would in all probability happen; they thought of their women, of all that
most strongly bound them to life, and they sat and waited dumbly.

The moon that night was too brilliant for benisons; the gaunt, red world
lay naked and unshriven for the sin that long ago had brought upon it the
wrath of God. The picture was still that of the grotesque Chinese screen,
with the headless dragon crawling en