The Winning of Barbara Worth | Page 9

winding trail lay--a bed of sand and gravel--and here and there appeared clumps of greasewood and cacti of several varieties.
At length they passed out from between the last of the foot-hills and suddenly--as though a mighty curtain were lifted--they faced the desert. At their feet the Mesa lay in a blaze of white sunlight, and beyond and below the edge of the bench the vast King's Basin country.
At the edge of the Mesa Texas halted his team and the little party looked out and away over those awful reaches of desolate solitude. The Seer and Pat uttered involuntary exclamations. Jefferson Worth, Texas, and Abe were silent, but the boy's thin features were aglow with eager enthusiasm, and the face of the driver revealed an interest in the scene that years of familiarity could not entirely deaden, but the gray mask of the banker betrayed no emotion.
In that view, of such magnitude that miles meant nothing, there was not a sign of man save the one slender thread of road that was so soon lost in the distance. From horizon to horizon, so far that the eye ached in the effort to comprehend it, there was no cloud to cast a shadow, and the deep sky poured its resistless flood of light upon the vast dun plain with savage fury, as if to beat into helplessness any living creature that might chance to be caught thereon. And the desert, receiving that flood from the wide, hot sky, mysteriously wove with it soft scarfs of lilac, misty veils of purple and filmy curtains of rose and pearl and gold; strangely formed with it wide lakes of blue rimmed with phantom hills of red and violet-- constantly changing, shifting, scene on scene, as dream pictures shift and change.
Only the strange, silent life that, through long years, the desert had taught to endure its hardships was there--the lizard, horned- toad, lean jack-rabbit, gaunt coyote, and their kind. Only the hard growth that the ages had evolved dotted the floor of the Basin in the near distance--the salt-bush and greasewood, with here and there clumps of mesquite.
And over it all--over the strange hard life, the weird, constantly shifting scenes, the wondrous, ever-changing colors--was the dominant, insistent, compelling spirit of the land; a brooding, dreadful silence; a waiting--waiting--waiting; a mystic call that was at once a threat and a promise; a still drawing of the line across which no man might go and live, save those master men who should win the right.
After a while the engineer, pointing, said: "The line of the Southwestern and Continental must follow the base of those hills away over there--is that right, Texas?"
"That'll be about it," the driver answered. "I hear you're goin' through San Antonio Pass, an' that's to the north. Rubio City lies about here--" he pointed a little south of east. "Our road runs through them sand hills that you can see shinin' like gold a-way over there. Dry River Crossin' is jest beyond. You can see Lone Mountain off here to the south. Hit'll sure be some warm down there. Look at them dust-devil's dancin'. An' over there, where you see that yellow mist like, is a big sand storm. We ain't likely to get a long one this time o' the year. But you can't tell what this old desert 'll do; she's sure some uncertain. La Palma de la Mano de Dios, the Injuns call it, and I always thought that--all things considerin'--the name fits mighty close. You can see hit's jest a great big basin."
"The Hollow of God's Hand." repeated the Seer in a low tone. He lifted his hat with an unconscious gesture of reverence.
The Irishman, as the engineer translated, crossed himself. "Howly Mither, fwhat a name!"
Jefferson Worth spoke. "Drive on, Texas."
And so, with the yellow dust-devils dancing along their road and that yellow cloud in the distance, they moved down the slope--down into The King's Basin--into La Palma de la Mano de Dios, The Hollow of God's Hand.
"Is that true, sir?" asked Abe of the Seer.
"Is what true, son?"
"What Texas said about the ocean."
"Yes it's true. The lowest point of this Basin is nearly three hundred feet below sea level. The railroad we are going to build follows right around the rim on the other side over there. This slope that we are going down now is the ancient beach." Then, while they pushed on into the silence and the heat of that dreadful land, the engineer told the boy and his companions how the ages had wrought with river and wave and sun and wind to make The King's Basin Desert.
Wolf Wells they found dry as Texas had anticipated. Phantom Lake also was dry. Occasionally they crossed dry, ancient water courses made by the river when the land was being