They were but specks crawling underneath the sky--the only living, moving objects in all that immense circle of desolation and death.
Keith turned in the saddle, looking back past Neb--who swayed in his seat, with head lolling on his breast as though asleep, his horse plodding after the others--along the slight trail they had made across the desert.

So far as eye could reach nothing moved, nothing apparently existed.

Fronting again to the north he looked upon the same grim barrenness, only that far off, against the lighter background of distant sky, there was visible a faint blur, a bluish haze, which he believed to be the distant sand dunes bordering the Arkansas.

The intense dreariness of it all left a feeling of depression.

His eyes turned and regarded the girl riding silently beside him.