I fell asleep in the scant shade of the sage bushes and awoke, stifled and moist.

The old plainsman, never weary, leaned with his back against a stone and watched, with narrow gaze, the canyon below.

The steely walls hurt my eyes; the sky was like hot copper.

Though nearly wild with heat and aching bones and muscles and the long hours of wait--wait--wait, I was ashamed to complain, for there sat the old man, still and silent.

I routed out a hairy tarantula from under a stone and teased him into a frenzy with my stick, and tried to get up a fight between him and a scallop-backed horned-toad that blinked wonderingly at me.