He knew it, and hated it.

He sneered as his gaze went out of the valley and sought the vast stretches of the flaming desert.

He knew the desert, too; it had not changed.

Riding through it yesterday and the day before he had been impressed with the somber grimness of it all, as he had been impressed many times before when watching it from this very hill.

But it was no more somber than his own life had been; its brooding silence was no deeper than that which dwelt in his own heart; he reflected its spirit, its mystery was his.