Nothing but jack rabbits and little, twittery birds moved through the sage, though she watched hungrily for horsemen.
Quite suddenly the gray landscape glowed with a palpitating radiance, unreal, beautiful beyond expression.

She stopped, turned to face the west and stared awestruck at one of those flaming sunsets which makes the desert land seem but a gateway into the ineffable glory beyond the earth.

That the high-piled, gorgeous cloud-bank presaged a thunderstorm she never guessed; and that a thunderstorm may be a deadly, terrifying peril she never had quite believed.

Her mother had told of people being struck by lightning, but Lorraine could not associate lightning with death, especially in the West, where men usually died by shooting, lynching, or by pitching over a cliff.
The wind hushed as suddenly as it had whooped.

Warned by the twinkling lights far behind her--lights which must be the small part at last visible of Echo, Idaho--Lorraine went on.