THE APPROACH 



17 



air ! Even on the mountain tops that heavy 

 air could be felt, and down in the desert itself 

 the driving particles of sand cut the face and 

 hands like blizzard-snow. The ponies could 

 not be made to face it. They turned their 

 backs to the wind and hung their heads be- 

 tween their fore feet. And how that wind 

 roared and whistled through the thin grease- 

 wood ! The scrubby growths leaned and bent 

 in the blast, the sand piled high on the trunks ; 

 and nothing but the enormous tap-roots kept 

 them from being wrenched from the earth. 



And danger always followed the high winds. 

 They blew the sands in clouds that drifted full 

 and destroyed the trails. In a single night 

 they would cover up a water hole, and in a few 

 days fill in an arroyo where water could be got 

 by digging. The sands drove like breakers on 

 a beach, washing and wearing everything up 

 to the bases of the mountains. And the fine 

 sand reached still higher. It whirled up the 

 canyons and across the saddles, it eddied around 

 the enormous taluses, it even flung itself upon 

 the face walls of the mountain and left the 

 smoothing marks of its fingers upon the sharp 

 pinnacles of the peak. 



It was in winter when the winds were fiercest. 



Desert 

 storms. 



Drift <tf 

 sand. 



