Tex led the way around the base of the butte and down into the coulee he had followed the previous day.  “We’ve got to take it easy this trip,” he explained.  “There ain’t any too much light an’ we can’t take any chances on holes an’ loose rocks.  It’ll be rough goin’ all the way, but a good fast walk ought to put us half way, by daylight, an’ then we can hit her up a little better.”  The moon swung higher and the light increased somewhat, but at best it was poor enough, serving only to bring out the general outlines of the trail and the bolder contour of the coulee’s rim.  No breath of the wind stirred the air that was cold, with a dank, clammy coldness—­like the dead air of a cistern.  As she rode, the girl noticed the absence of its buoyant tang.  The horses’ hoofs rang hollow and thin on the hard rock of the coulee bed, and even the frenzied yapping of a pack of coyotes, sounded uncanny and far away.  Between these sounds the stillness seemed oppressive—­charged with a nameless feeling of unwholesome portent.  “It is the evil spell of the bad lands,” thought the girl, and shuddered.

Dawn broke with the moon still high above the western skyline.  The sides of the coulee had flattened and they traversed a country of low-lying ridges and undulating rock-basins.  As the yellow rim of the sun showed above the crest of a far-off ridge, their ears caught the muffled roar of wind.  From the elevation of a low hill the four gazed toward the west where a low-hung dust-cloud, lowering, ominous, mounted higher and higher as the roar of the wind increased.  The air about them remained motionless—­dead.  Suddenly it trembled, swirled, and rushed forward to meet the oncoming dust-cloud as though drawn toward it by the suck of a mighty vortex.

“Dat better we gon’ for hont de hole.  Dat dust sto’m she raise hell.”

“Hole up, nothin’!” cried the Texan; “How are we goin’ to hole up—­four of us an’ five horses, on a pint of water an’ three cans of tomatoes?  When that storm hits it’s goin’ to be hot.  We’ve just naturally got to make that water-hole!  Come on, ride like the devil before she hits, because we’re goin’ to slack up considerable, directly.”

The cowboy led the way and the others followed, urging their horses at top speed.  The air was still cool, and as she rode, Alice glanced over her shoulder toward the dust cloud, nearer now, by many miles.  The roar of the wind increased in volume.  “It’s like the roar of the falls at Niagara,” she thought, and spurred her horse close beside the Texan’s.

“Only seventeen or eighteen miles,” she heard him say, as her horse drew abreast.  “The wind’s almost at our back, an’ that’ll help some.”  He jerked the silk scarf from his neck and extended it toward her.  “Cover your mouth an’ nose with that when she hits.  An’ keep your eyes shut.  We’ll make it all right, but it’s goin’ to be tough.”  A mile further on the storm burst with the fury of