The whole scene impressed Venters as a wild, austere, and mighty manifestation of nature.

And as it somehow reminded him of his prospect in life, so it suddenly resembled the woman near him, only in her there were greater beauty and peril, a mystery more unsolvable, and something nameless that numbed his heart and dimmed his eye.
"Look! A rider!" exclaimed Jane, breaking the silence.

"Can that be Lassiter ?" Venters moved his glance once more to the west.

A horseman showed dark on the sky-line, then merged into the color of the sage.
"It might be.

But I think not--that fellow was coming in.