ellets of snow, almost like hail, was so freezing bitter
cold that the former wind seemed warm in comparison. The squall passed
as swiftly as it had come, and it left Shefford so benumbed he could not
hold the bridle. He tumbled off his horse and walked. By and by the sun
came out and soon warmed him and melted the thin layer of snow on the
sand. He was still on the trail of the Indian girl, but hers were now
the only tracks he could see.

All morning he gradually climbed, with limited view, until at last he
mounted to a point where the country lay open to his sight on all sides
except where the endless black mesa ranged on into the north. A rugged
yellow peak dominated the landscape to the fore, but it was far away.
Red and jagged country extended westward to a huge flat-topped wall of
gray rock. Lowering swift clouds swept across the sky, like drooping
mantles, and darkened the sun. Shefford built a little fire out of dead
greasewood sticks, and with his blanket round his shoulders he hung over
the blaze, scorching his clothes and hands. He had been cold before in
his life but he had never before appreciated fire. This desert blast
pierced him. The squall enveloped him, thicker and colder and windier
than the other, but, being better fortified, he did not suffer so much.
It howled away, hiding the mesa and leaving a white desert behind.
Shefford walked on, leading his horse, until the exercise and the sun
had once more warmed him.

This last squall had rendered the Indian girl's trail difficult to
follow. The snow did not quickly melt, and, besides, sheep tracks and
the tracks of horses gave him trouble, until at last he was compelled to
admit that he could not follow her any longer. A faint path or trail
led north, however, and, following that, he soon forgot the girl. Every
surmounted ridge held a surprise for him. The desert seemed never to
change in the vast whole that encompassed him, yet near him it was
always changing. From Red Lake he had seen a peaked, walled, and
canyoned country, as rough as a stormy sea; but when he rode into that
country the sharp and broken features held to the distance.

He was glad to get out of the sand. Long narrow flats, gray with grass
and dotted with patches of greasewood, and lined by low bare ridges of
yellow rock, stretched away from him, leading toward the yellow peak
that seemed never to be gained upon.

Shefford had pictures in his mind, pictures of stone walls and wild