_Another Miracle and a Temptation in the Wilderness_ The floor of the valley was an arid waste, flat and treeless, a far sweep of gray and gold, of sage-brush spangled with sunflowers, patched here and there with glistening beds of salt and soda, or pools of the deadly alkali.

Here crawled the lizard and the rattlesnake; and there was no music to the desolation save the petulant chirp of the cricket.
At the sides an occasional stream tumbled out of the mountains to be all but drunk away at once by the thirsty sands.

Along the banks of these was the only green to be found, sparse fringes of willow and wild rose.
On the borders of the valley, where the steeps arose, were little patches of purple and dusty brown, oak-bush, squaw-berry, a few dwarfed cedars, and other scant growths.

At long intervals could be found a marsh of wire-grass, or a few acres of withered bunch-grass.

But these served only to emphasise the prevailing desert tones.
The sun-baked earth was so hard that it broke their ploughs when they tried to turn it.