By devious turnings and breath-taking climbs, the trail finally
reached the top at the only point for miles, where it was
possible for a horseman to pass up or down.
Then began the desert, a great stretch of unlovely sage and lava
rock and sand for mile upon mile, to where the distant mountain
ridges reached out and halted peremptorily the ugly sweep of it.
The railroad gashed it boldly, after the manner of the iron trail
of modern industry; but the trails of the desert dwellers wound
through it diffidently, avoiding the rough crest of lava rock
where they might, dodging the most aggressive sagebrush and
dipping tentatively into hollows, seeking always the easiest way
to reach some remote settlement or ranch.
Of the men who followed those trails, not one of them but could
have ridden straight to the Peaceful Hart ranch in black
darkness; and there were few, indeed, white men or Indians, who
could have ridden there at midnight and not been sure of blankets
and a welcome to sweeten their sleep.
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