The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1904-08-19

n Lauu so QeSOlaLe LQaL magma
ton might not picture it; the surface
alternating in gray and red, where
the disintegrated line and sandstone
lay side by side without mingling; a
soil too coarse for vegetation, hard
with the baking of a burning sun.
and worn into ridges, where the
spring torrents from the melting
snow Of the mountains had eaten
away the softer earth. In scattered
clumps, gray sage-seeming in its
IifeIess dryness rather a part Of the
dead soil than a living growth from
It Here and there cleaned white in
the sunshine masses Of bleached
bones Of cattIe-perhaps Of men
who had wandered there and died
The vast plain that stretched, q dead
waste, to the mountains which hung
ike banks Of mists on the edge Of the
horizon, was broken by hideOUs
masses Of red sandstone, gigantic.
Water-wOrn into curious shapes by
the foods Of aged untold. Here, one
stood isolated, in the form Of a
crOuching animal ready 70 spring;
there, they lay along the plain, as If
huge lizards had been suddenly
turned to stone. Again. one lowered
like a pillar, carved with strange de-
vices of a forgotten people, and yOn-
der, in masses and groups and rows.
they seemed the ruins Of some vast
city, whose streets and squares must
have echoed TO busy feet hundreds
thousands Of years ago. Not a tree
in the vast plain, but over all q sky
at the meridian, that burned with
more than trOpic heat
Suddenly, in the very center Of this
horror Of desOlatiOn, appeared a man
He was crOuching in the water-wOrn
hollow Of one Of the biggest rocks.
covering in its blacklist shadow and
gazing on across the wide plain to
the dim mist that told where the
mountains lay. There was a bag
gard, hunted look in his face, and
when in the deep stiffness, unbrOken
by the hum Of a locust or the buzz
CT a beetle, a bit of sandstone
dropped from the great bouIders, he
shivered as with fear and drew deep
er into the shadow Of the followed
rock.
=
gather courage and suddenly dropped
from his rOCk-shelter, fiat upon the
ground. still, however, within the
shadows of the great boulder Then
he raised his head and again gazed
away toward the mountain. It was
as if he felt that the mountain had
eyes and was watching the great
plain, on which anything that moved
would be seen through the clear air
and known by its power OF life to
be strange to that dead world.
After a time he was crawling like
a lizard, out of the shadows, across
a stretch Of hot sunlight, in among
the scant sage bUshes-cTawling as
il he would be a part of the gray and
red earth, if only he could bUrrOw
into it and escape sight Even when
he reached the sage bushes he did
not rise, but instead, crept on and
on, until he came to one Of those
hideOus water-wOrn gullies, into
which he rolled without raising his
body from the ground.
There he lay for a time, as if ex-
pecting that the dead plain would
give some token that his caution had
been in vain. Streams OF perspira-
ton rolled down his face and mixed
with the white dust that was rising
constantly from the dead soil, work
/ ing into the pores Of his skin and
I parching his mouth and throat as he
/ lag and listened to his own heart
beats and the awful silence
Evidently the gully had been Sc
Iected as leading In the direction he
wished to take, for finally ne rose
20 a crOuching posture and began to
move up its course, walking almost
swiftly. though with still Bonded
back, where IT was deep and the sage
bush hung over il, and crawling
I ef7u 71r.r-- and Law