The gray day declined.

Late into the purple night they traveled, then camped without fire.
In the gray morning Jones climbed a high ride and scanned the southwest.

Low dun-colored sandhills waved from him down and down, in slow, deceptive descent.

A solitary and remote waste reached out into gray infinitude.

A pale lake, gray as the rest of that gray expanse, glimmered in the distance.
"Mirage!" he muttered, focusing his glass, which only magnified all under the dead gray, steely sky.