into the horizon; southward were other mountains, equally distant and
mysterious; northward--so far away that they blurred in the vision--were
still other mountains. Intervening on all sides was the stretching,
soundless, aching void of desolation, carrying to the rider its lurking
threat of death, the promise of evil to come.

The man, however, seemed unperturbed. In his narrowed, squinting eyes as
he watched the desert was a gleam of comprehension, of knowledge intimate
and sympathetic. They glowed with the serene calm of confidence; and far
back in them lurked a glint of grim mockery. It was as though they
visualized the threatened dangers upon which they looked, answering the
threat with contempt.

The man was tall. His slim waist was girded by a cartridge belt which was
studded with leaden missiles for the rifle that reposed in the saddle
holster, and for the two heavy pistols that sagged at his hips. A gray
woolen shirt adorned his broad shoulders; a scarlet neckerchief at his
throat which had covered his mouth as he rode was now drooping on his
chest; and the big, wide-brimmed felt hat he wore was jammed far down
over his forehead. The well-worn leather chaps that covered his legs
could not conceal their sinewy strength, nor could the gauntleted leather
gloves on his hands hide the capable size of them.

He was a fixture of this great waste of world in whose center he sat. He
belonged to the country; he was as much a part of it as the somber
mountains, the sun-baked sand, the dead lava, and the hardy, evil-looking
cacti growth that raised its spined and mocking green above the arid
stretch. He symbolized the spirit of the country--from the slicker that
bulged at the cantle of the saddle behind him, to the capable gloved
hands that were now resting on the pommel of the saddle--he represented
the force which was destined to conquer the waste places.

For two days he had been fighting the desert; and in the serene calm of
his eyes was the identical indomitability that had been in them when he
had set forth. As he peered westward the strong lines around his mouth
relaxed, his lips opened a trifle, and a mirthless smile wreathed them.
He patted the shoulder of the black horse, and the dead dust ballooned
from the animal's coat and floated heavily downward.

"We're about halfway, Purgatory," he said aloud, his voice coming flat
and expressionless in the dead, vacuum-like silence. He did not cease to
peer westward