The mountains . w; we told stories;we rode cross-saddle, sidewise, erect, slouching; wewalked and led our horses; we shook the powder ofyears from old worn jokes, conundrums, and puzzles,— and at the end, in spite of our best efforts, we fellto morose silence and the red-eyed vindictive con-templation of the objective point that would notseem to come nearer. For now we lost accurate sense of time. At first ithad been merely a question of going in at one sideof eight days, pressing through them, and coming outon the other side. Then the eight days would bebehind us. But once we had entered that
The mountains . w; we told stories;we rode cross-saddle, sidewise, erect, slouching; wewalked and led our horses; we shook the powder ofyears from old worn jokes, conundrums, and puzzles,— and at the end, in spite of our best efforts, we fellto morose silence and the red-eyed vindictive con-templation of the objective point that would notseem to come nearer. For now we lost accurate sense of time. At first ithad been merely a question of going in at one sideof eight days, pressing through them, and coming outon the other side. Then the eight days would bebehind us. But once we had entered that enchantedperiod, we found ourselves more deeply seemingly limited area spread with startlingswiftness to the very horizon. Abruptly it was bornein on us that this was never going to end; just asnow for the first time we realized that it had beguninfinite ages ago. We were caught in the entangle-ment of days. The Coast Ranges were the experiencesof a past incarnation: the Mountains were a myth. 74. THE INFERNO Nothing was real but this; and this would endureforever. We plodded on because somehow it waspart of the great plan that we should do so. Notthat it did any good : — we had long since given upsuch ideas. The illusion was very real; perhaps itwas the anodyne mercifully administered to thosewho pass through the Inferno. Most of the time we got on well enough. Oneday, only, the Desert showed her power. That day,at five of the afternoon, it was one hundred andtwenty degrees in the shade. And we, through neces-sity of reaching the next water, journeyed over thealkali at noon. Then the Desert came close on us andlooked us fair in the eyes, concealing nothing. Shekilled poor Deuce, the beautiful setter who had trav-eled the wild countries so long; she struck Wesand the Tenderfoot from their horses when finallythey had reached a long-legged water-tank; she evenstaggered the horses themselves. And I, lying undera bush where I had stayed after the others in the hop
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Keywords: ., bookauthorwhiteste, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1904
