There was not a tree in sight.

There was no vegetation but the endless sage-brush and greasewood.

All nature was gray with it.

We were plowing through great deeps of powdery alkali dust that rose in thick clouds and floated across the plain like smoke from a burning house.
We were coated with it like millers; so were the coach, the mules, the mail-bags, the driver--we and the sage-brush and the other scenery were all one monotonous color.

Long trains of freight wagons in the distance envelope in ascending masses of dust suggested pictures of prairies on fire.