CHAPTER VII 

 A DESERT GRAVEYARD 



In the blue ending of a desert day with the sun in the set- 

 ting and the somber shadows creeping over the desert hills 

 and down into the lowlands and swales, we would if we could 

 build a dream-city story of a ghostly desert village, spectral 

 and silent and lonely with only the dismal howl of the coyote 

 to punctuate our tale. Since we are on a trek into the forbid- 

 den land of thorns and spikes and spines, we have but to add 

 the Song of the Desert and the setting of our story is 

 complete. 



It is near the sunset time, when the cooling of the desert 

 wind begins and we can view the horizon pierced by the dis- 

 tant mountains and perhaps the many trees on the mountain 

 slopes, while out on the mesas and down in the valleys Nature 

 has painted the floor of the desert with lacework of many 

 kinds of brush, filigree of strange fantastic plants, tall and 

 shaftlike or sinuous and creepy, covered with countless spikes 

 and thorns, armed with innumerable spines or darts; all this 

 Is the desert, hot and dry and dusty by day, delightfully cool 

 and alluring when the sun has gone and the moonbeams flit 

 about among the strangely weird fantastic clan. It is the 

 beckoning call to spend the twilight in meditation and rest, 

 and then to sleep in comfort. Here then is the amphitheater 

 of the sun, and ere the Goddess of Night bids adieu to the 

 day, she takes up her baton and the music of a soft desert 

 night begins. It comes rushing in over yonder rim of moun- 

 tain peaks and down through the trees with a great crescendo 



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