He rode along the edge of the stream which wound toward the western end of the slowly looming mounds of stone.
The high slope retreated out of sight behind the nearer protection.
To Venters the valley appeared to have been filled in by a mountain of melted stone that had hardened in strange shapes of rounded outline.
He followed the stream till he lost it in a deep cut.

Therefore Venters quit the dark slit which baffled further search in that direction, and rode out along the curved edge of stone where it met the sage.

It was not long before he came to a low place, and here Wrangle readily climbed up.
All about him was ridgy roll of wind-smoothed, rain-washed rock.

Not a tuft of grass or a bunch of sage colored the dull rust-yellow.

He saw where, to the right, this uneven flow of stone ended in a blunt wall.
Leftward, from the hollow that lay at his feet, mounted a gradual slow-swelling slope to a great height topped by leaning, cracked, and ruined crags.