The valley was immense and the monuments miles apart.

But they always seemed close together and near him.

The air magnified everything.

Slone lost track of time.

The strange, solemn, lonely days and the silent, lonely nights, and the endless pursuit, and the wild, weird valley--these completed the work of years on Slone and he became satisfied, unthinking, almost savage.
The toil and privation had worn him down and he was like iron.