stant Sierra
Madres were clearer, bluer, less smoky and suggestive of mirage than she
had ever seen them. Madeline's sustaining faith upheld her in the
face of this appalling obstacle. Then the desert that had rolled its
immensity beneath her gradually began to rise, to lose its distant
margins, to condense its varying lights and shades, at last to hide its
yawning depths and looming heights behind red ridges, which were only
little steps, little outposts, little landmarks at its gates.

The bouncing of the huge car, throwing Madeline up, directed her
attention and fastened it upon the way Link Stevens was driving and upon
the immediate foreground. Then she discovered that he was following an
old wagon-road. At the foot of that long slope they struck into rougher
ground, and here Link took to a cautious zigzag course. The wagon-road
disappeared and then presently reappeared. But Link did not always hold
to it. He made cuts, detours, crosses, and all the time seemed to be
getting deeper into a maze of low, red dunes, of flat canyon-beds lined
by banks of gravel, of ridges mounting higher. Yet Link Stevens kept on
and never turned back. He never headed into a place that he could not
pass. Up to this point of travel he had not been compelled to back the
car, and Madeline began to realize that it was the cowboy's wonderful
judgment of ground that made advance possible. He knew the country;
he was never at a loss; after making a choice of direction, he never
hesitated.

Then at the bottom of a wide canyon he entered a wash where the wheels
just barely turned in dragging sand. The sun beat down white-hot, the
dust arose, there was not a breath of wind; and no sound save the
slide of a rock now and then down the weathered slopes and the labored
chugging of the machine. The snail pace, like the sand at the wheels,
began to drag at Madeline's faith. Link gave over the wheel to Madeline,
and, leaping out, he called Nels. When they untied the long planks and
laid them straight in front for the wheels to pass over Madeline saw
how wise had been Link's forethought. With the aid of those planks they
worked the car through sand and gravel otherwise impossible to pass.

This canyon widened and opened into space affording an unobstructed view
for miles. The desert sloped up in steps, and in the morning light, with
the sun bright on the mesas and escarpments, it was gray, drab, stone,
slate, yellow, pink, and, dominating all, a dull ru