He had made his simple camp for the night.

His blue-grey army blanket lay spread under a live oak, his horse grazed near at hand.

He himself sat on his heels before a little fire of dead manzanita roots, cooking his coffee and bacon.

Never had Presley conceived so keen an impression of loneliness as his crouching figure presented.

The bald, bare landscape widened about him to infinity.
Vanamee was a spot in it all, a tiny dot, a single atom of human organisation, floating endlessly on the ocean of an illimitable nature.
The two friends ate together, and Vanamee, having snared a brace of quails, dressed and then roasted them on a sharpened stick.