of golden light and all the dark shadows moved
toward him. A breath of air fanned his cheek, and as he drank deep from
his canteen he nodded to the Gateway and smiled.

CHAPTER XXIX

ACROSS DEATH VALLEY

The way to the Ube-Hebes lay across a low flat, glistening white with
crystals of alkali; and as his car trundled on Wiley came to a strip of
sand, piled up in the lee of a prostrate salt bush. Other bushes
appeared, and more sand about them, and then a broad, smooth wave. It
mounted up from the north, gently scalloped by the wind, and on the
south side it broke off like a wall. He drove along below it, glancing
up as it grew higher, until at last it cut off his view. All the north
was gone, and the Gateway to his hiding-place; but the south and west
were there. To the south lay mud flats, powdery dry but packed hard; and
the west was a wilderness of sand.

A giant mesquite tree, piled high with clinging drifts, rose up before
the crest of his wave, and as he plowed in between them the edge of the
crest poured down in a whispering cascade. Then more trees loomed up,
and hundreds of white bushes each mounted on its pedestal of sand; and
at the base of each salt-bush there were kangaroo-rat holes and the
tracery of their tails in the dust. Men called it Death Valley, but for
such as these it was a place of fullness and joy. They had capered
about, striking the ground with their tails at the end of each playful
jump, and the dry, brittle salt-bushes had been feast enough to them,
who never knew the taste of grass or water.

The sand-wave rose higher, leaving a damp hollow behind it where
ice-plants grew green and rank; and as he crept along the thunder of
his exhaust started tons of sliding silt. His wheels raced and
burrowed as he struck a soft spot, and then abruptly they sank. He dug
them out carefully and backed away, but a mound of drifted sand barred
his way. Twist and turn as he would he could not get around it and at
last he climbed to its summit. The sun was setting in purple and fire
behind the black shoulder of the Panamints and like a path of gold it
marked out the way, the only way to cross the Valley. At the south was
the Sink with its treacherous bog-holes and further north the
sand-hills were limitless--the only way, where the wagon-wheels had
crossed, was buried deep in the sand. Three great mountains of sand,
like huge breakers of the sea, had swept in and covered the
wheel-tracks; and far t