Lucy seldom put a spur to Sarchedon; still, she gave him a lash with her quirt, and then he went on obediently, if disgustedly.

He carried his head like a horse that wondered why his mistress preferred to drive him down into an unpleasant hole when she might have been cutting the sweet, cool sage wind up on the slope.
The wash, with its sand and clay walls, dropped into a gulch, and there was an end of green growths.

The road led down over solid rock.
Gradually the rims of the gorge rose, shutting out the light and the cliffs.

It was a winding road and one not safe to tarry on in a stormy season.

Lucy had seen boulders weighing a ton go booming down that gorge during one of the sudden fierce desert storms, when a torrent of water and mud and stone went plunging on to the river.