Sudden The Range Robbers

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The desert! As far as the eye could reach it stretched, alternating swells and levels of greyish-white sand, broken only by occasional ridges and hummocks of sun-scorched rock, protruding from the surface like the bared bones of a giant skeleton. Stunted mesquite, sagebrush, and the tortured forms of cactus, weird of leaf and beautiful of flower, were the only evidence of vegetation. Over all danced a shimmering heat which, flung down from a brazen sky and reflected back by the sand, made the eyes ache and the brain dizzy.

Following a faintly-defined trail came a wiry little cow-pony, pacing wearily but steadily through the burning sand, and picking its way without the apparent assistance of its rider, who, humped forward in the saddle, seemed oblivious of everything.

An hour passed, and the pony's ears pricked up and its pace quickened slightly. Aware of this, the rider looked up and saw that the weary desert tramp was at last coming to an end. On the horizon now the vivid blue of the sky deepened to an almost black serrated line, which he knew to be a range of hills. Far as they still were, they carried a message of hope, and the traveler pressed on.

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