direction of the Sakaltuton Pass, seven miles away. He started to speak. His eyes wandered toward the break in the escarpment; and he remained silent, as his eyes ranged the vast expanse of drab desolation. Insensibly, he yielded to the influence of the wonderful prospect unfolded maplike before him. No one can look for long at the desert and remain unresponsive to its subtle quiescence.
The rock became hotter and hotter as the morning advanced and the sun climbed toward the zenith. From time to time puffs of dead, sterile wind blew over them, making the flesh tingle where the drenched flannel shirts clung to them like plaster. The metal work of the gun was almost unbearable to the touch; and their spine-pads were heated as if by the blast from an open furnace door.
"Gawd bli-me!" the smaller man's voice broke the pervasive quiet, the tones, for all their sharpness, sounding dead and flat in the still void. "Saint Peter fryin' on 'is bleedin' grid was 'aving a chill to wot we're getting 'ere, along of roasting on this—rock, and blistering under this bloody sun, wiv no water to drink between nah and sun-dahn.
"Gawd's curse on this country, and them as wants to tyke it! Let Johnny keep it an' be damned to 'im! The whole damned Mespot ain't
