d objurgated and threatened in turn.
But all to no avail. The horses held stolidly to their gait,
plodding--even, after a time, dropping into slower movement. Whereat
Felipe, abandoning all hope, flung down reins and whip, and leaped off
the reach of the rigging. Prompt with the loosened lines the team came
to a full stop; and Felipe, snatching up a blanket, covered his head and
shoulders with it and squatted in the scant protection of a forward
wheel.

The storm whipped and howled past. Felipe listened, noting each change
in its velocity as told by the sound of raging gusts outside, himself
raging. Once he lifted a corner of the blanket and peered out--only to
suffer the sting of a thousand needles. Again, he hunched his shoulders
guardedly and endeavored to roll a cigarette; but the tempestuous blasts
discouraged this also, and with a curse he dashed the tobacco from him.
After that he remained still, listening, until he heard an agreeable
change outside. The screeching sank to a crooning; the crooning dropped
to a low, musical sigh. Flinging off the blanket, he rose and swept the
desert with eyes sand-filled and blinking.

The last of the yellow winds was eddying slowly past. All about him the
air, thinning rapidly, pulsated in the sun's rays, which, beaming mildly
down upon the desert, were spreading everywhere in glorious sheen. To
the east, the mountains, stepping forth in the clearing atmosphere, lay
revealed in a warmth of soft purple; while the slopes to the west, over
which the storm had broken, shone in a wealth of dazzling yellow-white
light--sunbeams scintillating off myriads of tiny sand-cubes. The desert
was itself again--bright, resplendent-gripped in the clutch of solitude.

Felipe tossed his blanket back upon the reach of the rigging. Then he
caught up reins and whip, ready to go on. As he did so he paused in
dismay.

For one of the mares was down! It was the off mare, the slower and the
older mare of the two. She was lying prone and she was breathing
heavily. Covered as she was with a thin layer of fine sand, and tightly
girdled with chaotic harness straps, she was a spectacle of abject
misery.

But Felipe did not see this. All he saw, in the blinding rage which
suddenly possessed him, was a horse down, unready for duty, and beside
her a horse standing, ready for duty, but restrained by the other.
Stringing out a volley of oaths, he stepped to the side of the mare and
jerked at her head, but she