Both ends of the basin constricted sharply at the gorges, resembling a wide, narrow-necked bottle.
A thin stream of water flowed on each side of a hard, rock trail that ran straight through the center of the basin, and on both sides of the trail a black bog of quicksand spread, covering the entire surface of the land.
Halfway through the basin, Sanderson halted Streak on the narrow trail and looked at the treacherous sand.
"I've seen quicksand, _an'_ quicksand," he declared, "but this is the bogs of the lot.

If any steers get bogged down in there they wouldn't be able to bellow more than once before they'd sink out of sight!" "There's a heap of them in there," remarked Carter.
It was an eery place, and the echo of their voices resounded with ever-increasing faintness.
"I never go through this damned hell-hole without gettin' the creeps," declared Carter.

"An' I've got nerve enough, too, usually.

There's somethin' about the place that suggests the cattle an' men it's swallowed.
"Do you see that flat section there ?" he indicated a spot about a hundred yards wide and half as long, which looked like hard, baked earth, black and dead.

"That's where that herd I was tellin' you about went in.