No one professed knowledge of those who dwelt therein.

They moved, mysterious as the desert illusions that compassed them about.

As you rode, the ranges of mountains visibly changed form, the monstrous, snaky, sea-like growths of the cactus clutched at your stirrup, mock lakes sparkled and dissolved in the middle distance, the sun beat hot and merciless, the powdered dry alkali beat hotly and mercilessly back--and strange, grim men, swarthy, bearded, heavily armed, with red-rimmed unshifting eyes, rode silently out of the mists of illusion to look on you steadily, and then to ride silently back into the desert haze.
They might be only the herders of the gaunt cattle, or again they might belong to the Lost Legion that peopled the country.

All you could know was that of the men who entered in, but few returned.
Directly north of this unknown land you encountered parallel fences running across the country.

They enclosed nothing, but offered a check to the cattle drifting toward the clutch of the renegades, and an obstacle to swift, dashing forays.
Of cattle-rustling there are various forms.