Nor did the cactus offer any relief, since it was only just coming
into bloom, and as yet bore no fruit.
The sun had grown red and huge when at last in the hard-baked dirt
she discovered fresh hoof-prints. These seemed to lead along the
line in which she was traveling, and she followed them gladly,
encouraged when they were joined by others, for, although they
meandered aimlessly, they formed something more like a trail than
anything she had as yet seen. Guessing at their general direction,
she hurried on, coming finally into a region where the soil was
shallow and scarcely served to cover the rocky substratum. A low
bluff rose on her left, and along its crest scattered Spanish
daggers were raggedly silhouetted against the sky.
She was in a well-defined path now; she tried to run, but her legs
were heavy; she stumbled a great deal, and her breath made
strange, distressing sounds as it issued from her open lips.
Hounding the steep shoulder of the ridge, she hastened down a
declivity into a knot of scrub-oaks and ebony-trees, then halted,
staring ahead of her.
The nakedness of the stony arroyo, the gnarled and stunted
thickets, were softened by the magic of twilight; the air had
suddenly cooled; overhead the empty, flawless sky was deepening
swiftly from blue to purple; the chaparral had awakened and echoed
now to the sounds of life.
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