Before proceeding farther he halted, studying the strange
character of this slope and realizing that a moving black object
could be seen far against such background. Before him ascended a
gradual swell of smooth stone. It was hard, polished, and full of
pockets worn by centuries of eddying rain-water. A hundred yards
up began a line of grotesque cedar-trees, and they extended along
the slope clear to its most southerly end. Beyond that end
Venters wanted to get, and he concluded the cedars, few as they
were, would afford some cover.
Therefore he climbed swiftly. The trees were farther up than he
had estimated, though he had from long habit made allowance for
the deceiving nature of distances in that country. When he gained
the cover of cedars he paused to rest and look, and it was then
he saw how the trees sprang from holes in the bare rock. Ages of
rain had run down the slope, circling, eddying in depressions,
wearing deep round holes. There had been dry seasons,
accumulations of dust, wind-blown seeds, and cedars rose
wonderfully out of solid rock. But these were not beautiful
cedars. They were gnarled, twisted into weird contortions, as if
growth were torture, dead at the tops, shrunken, gray, and old.
Theirs had been a bitter fight, and Venters felt a strange
sympathy for them. This country was hard on trees--and men.
He slipped from cedar to cedar, keeping them between him and the
open valley.
Pages:
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135