SHOSHONE LAND 



in the open, is thorny, stocky, close grown, 

 and iron-rooted. Long winds move in the 

 draughty valleys, blown sand fills and fills 

 about the lower branches, piling pyramidal 

 dunes, from the top of which the mesquite 

 twigs flourish greenly. Fifteen or twenty' 

 feet under the drift, where it seems no rain 

 could penetrate, the main trunk grows, 

 attaining often a yard's thickness, resist- 

 ant as oak. In Shoshone Land one digs 

 for large timber ; that is in the southerly, 

 sandy exposures. Higher on the table- 

 topped ranges low trees of juniper and 

 pinon stand each apart, rounded and 

 spreading heaps of greenness. Between 

 them, but each to itself in smooth clear 

 spaces, tufts of tall feathered grass. 



This is the sense of the desert hills, that 

 there is room enough and time enough. 

 Trees grow to consummate domes ; every 

 ^7 



