50 The King of the Thundering Herd 



travel for hours, without seeing a sign of 

 life unless the glass was used, and then they 

 merely noted some brown spots upon the 

 far-away plains. The Spirit of the Plains 

 was a very silent and unapproachable spirit, 

 a being that wandered without sound or 

 form, without color, or any perceptible 

 shape, yet brooding silently over all. You 

 always felt, rather than saw it, a very ap- 

 parent presence, yet always eluding sight 

 and hearing. 



It deceived your eyes in regard to distance 

 upon the plains, and it caused sound to 

 travel very far. It laid a weird spell upon 

 all things. It was a new experience to the 

 Andersons, but gradually all came to love 

 the spirit of the desert, and to miss it when 

 they passed again into the broken Bad 

 Lands. 



All these things and many more Bennie 

 saw each night as he gazed into the danc- 

 ing camp-fire, and it was like living each 



